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THE GREAT VALLEY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO - DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



THE GREAT VALLEY 



By 

EDGAR LEE MASTERS 

AUTHOR OF " SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY " 
" SONGS AND SATIRES," ETC. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1916 

All rights reserved 






Copyright, 1916, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 

Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 19x6, 



#/; 



irt 



Nortoooli 3|reg8 

J. 8. Cashing Co. — Berwick «& Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



NOV -9 1916 
©CI.A445581 



TO THE MEMORY 
OF 

SQUIRE DAVIS and LUCINDA MASTERS 

WHO, CLOSE TO NATURE, ONE IN DEEP RELIGIOUS FAITH, THE OTHER 

IN PANTHEISTIC RAPTURE AND HEROISM, LIVED NEARLY A 

HUNDRED YEARS IN THIS LAND OF ILLINOIS 

I INSCRIBE 

THE GREAT VALLEY 

in admiration of their great strength, mastery 

of life, hopefulness, clear and 

beautiful democracy 

Edgar Lee Masters 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Fort Dearborn 1 

Capt. John Whistler 5 

Emily Brosseau : In Church 12 

The Ouija Board 19 

Hanging the Picture 21 

Lincoln and Douglas Debates .26 

Autochthon 33 

Grant and Logan and Our Tears 43 

The Municipal Pier . . . . . . . .49 

Gobineau to Tree 53 

Old Piery 60 

The Typical American ? 68 

Come, Republic 72 

Past and Present 76 

Robert G. Ingersoll 77 

At Havana 78 

The Mourner's Bench 80 

The Bay Window 83 

Man of Our Street 90 

Achilles Deatheridge 93 

Slip Shoe Lovey 95 

fvii] 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

The Archangels 98 

Song of Change 101 

Memorabilia 102 

To A Spiroch^ta 104 

Cato Braden 106 

Winston Prairie 120 

Will Boyden Lectures 125 

The Desplaines Forest 129 

The Garden 131 

The Tavern 134 

O Saepe Mecum 138 

Malachy Began 141 

My Dog Ponto 144 

The Gospel of Mark 147 

Marsyas 154 

Worlds Back of Worlds 160 

The Princess' Song 164 

The Furies 166 

Apollo at Pher^ 168 

Steam Shovel Cut 173 

The Houses 178 

The Church and the Hotel 185 

Susie 188 

Having His Way 190 

The Asp 198 

The Family 206 

The Subway 207 

The Radical's Message 211 

Bombyx 216 

The Apology of Demetrius 218 

[ viii 1 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

A Play in Four Acts 224 

Theodore Dreiser 228 

John Cowper Powys 231 

New Year's Day 234 

Playing Blind 240 

I Shall Never See You Again 241 

Elizabeth to Monsieur D 244 

Monsieur D to the Psychoanalyst .... 249 

The Last Confession 261 

In the Loggia 268 

Be With Me Through the Spring 272 

Desolate Scythia 273 

The Search 274 



[ix] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

I 

FORT DEARBORN 

Here the old Fort stood 

When the river bent southward. 

Now because the world pours itself into Chicago 

The Lake runs into the river 

Past docks and switch-yards, 

And under bridges of iron. 

Sand dunes stretched along the lake for miles. 

There was a great forest in the Loop. 

Now Michigan Avenue lies 

Between miles of lights, 

And the Rialto blazes 

Where the wolf howled. 

In the loneliness of the log-cabin, 

Across the river, 

The fur-trader played his fiddle 

When the snow lay 

About the camp of the Pottawatomies 

In the great forest. 

Now to the music of the Kangaroo Hop, 

And Ragging the Scale, 

B [I] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And La Seduccion, 

The boys and girls are dancing 

In a cafe near Lake Street. 

The world is theirs now. 

There is neither a past nor a to-morrow, 

Save of dancing. 

Nor do they know that behind them 

In the seed not yet sown 

There are eyes which will open upon Chicago, 

And feet which will blossom for the dance, 

And hands which will reach up 

And push them into the silence 

Of the old fiddler. 

They threw a flag 

Over the coffin of Lieutenant Farnum 

And buried him back of the Fort 

In ground where now 

The spice mills stand. 

And his little squaw with a baby 

Sat on the porch grieving 

While the band played. 

Then hands pushing the world 

Buried a million soldiers and afterward 

Pale multitudes swept through the Court-house 

To gaze for the last time 

Upon the shrunken face of Lincoln. 

[2] 



FORT DEARBORN 

And the fort at thirty-fifth street vanished. 

And where the Little Giant lived 

They made a park 

And put his statue 

Upon a column of marble. 

Now the glare of the steel mills at South Chicago 

Lights the bronze brow of Douglas. 

It is his great sorrow 

Haunting the Lake at mid-night. 

When the South was beaten 

They were playing 

John Brown's body lies mouldering in the Grave, 

And Babylon is Fallen and Wake Nicodemus. 

Now the boys and girls are dancing 

To the Merry Whirl and Hello Frisco 

Where they waltzed in crinoline 

When the Union was saved. 

There was the Marble Terrace 
Glory of the seventies ! 
They wrecked it, 
And brought colors and figures 
From later Athens and Pompeii 
And put them on walls. 
And beneath panels of red and gold. 
And shimmering tesserae. 
And tragic masks and comic masks, 
l3] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And wreaths and bucrania, 

Upon mosaic floors 

Red lipped women are dancing 

With dark men. 

Some sit at tables drinking and watching, 

Amorous in an air of French perfumes. 

Like ships at mid-night 

The kingdoms of the world 

Know not whither they go nor to what port. 

Nor do you, embryo hands, 

In the seed not yet sown 

Know of the wars to come. 

They may fill the sky with armored dragons 

And the waters with iron monsters ; 

They may build arsenals 

Where now upon marble floors 

The boys and girls 

Are dancing the Alabama Jubilee, 

The processional of time is a falling stream 

Through which you thrust your hand. 

And between the dancers and the silence forever 

There shall be the livers 

Gazing upon the torches they have lighted, 

And watching their own which are failing. 

And crying for oil. 

And finding it not ! 

[4] 



CAPTAIN JOHN WHISTLER 

II 

CAPTAIN JOHN WHISTLER 

{Captain John Whistler built Fort Dearborn in i8oj. 
His son, George Washington, who was an engineer 
and built a railroad in Russia for the Czar in 1842, 
was the father of the artist, James Abbott McNeill 
Whistler.) 

Throw logs upon the fire ! Relieve the guard 
At the main gate and wicket gate ! Lieutenant 
Send two men 'round the palisades, perhaps 
They'll find some thirsty Indians loitering 
Who may think there is whiskey to be had 
After the wedding. Get my sealing wax 1 
Now let me see "November, eighteen four: 
Dear Jacob : On this afternoon my daughter 
Was married to James Abbott, it's the first 
Wedding of white people in Chicago — 
That's what we call Fort Dearborn now and then. 
They left at once on horseback for Detroit." 
The "Tracy" will sail in to-morrow likely. 
"To Jacob Kingsbury" — that's well addressed. 
Don't fail to give this letter to the captain, 
That it may reach Detroit ere they do. 
I wonder how James Abbott and my Sarah 
Will fare three hundred miles of sand and marsh, 

[5] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And tangled forest In this hard November ? 

More logs upon the fire ! The mist comes down ! 

The lake roars like a wind, and not a star 

Lights up the blackness. They have almost reached 

The' Calumet by now. Good luck James Abbott 1 

I'm glad my Sarah wed so brave a man, 

And one so strong of arm. 

It's eighteen four, 
It's almost eighteen five. It's twenty years 
Since I was captured when Burgoyne was whipped 
At Saratoga. Why, it's almost twenty 
Since I became an American soldier. Now 
Here am I builder of this frontier fort, 
And its commander ! Aged now forty-nine. 
But in my time a British soldier first. 
Now an American ; first resident 
Of Ireland, then England, Maryland, 
Now living here. I see the wild geese fly 
To distant shores from distant shores and wonder 
How they endure such strangeness. But what's that 
To man's adventures, change of home, what's that 
To my unsettled life .? Why there's La Salle : 
They say La Salle in sixteen seventy-one 
Was here, and now it's almost eighteen five. 
And what's your wild geese to La Salle ! He's born 
At Rouen, sails the seas, and travels over 
Some several thousand miles through Canada. 

[6] 



CAPTAIN JOHN WHISTLER 

Is here exploring portages and rivers. 

Ends up at last down by the Rio Grande, 

And dies almost alone half way around 

The world from where he started. There's a man ! 

May some one say of me : There was a man ! . . . 

I'm lonely without Sarah, without James. 

Tom bring my pipe and that tobacco bag. 

Here place my note to Jacob Kingsbury 

There on the shelf — remember, to the captain 

When the "Tracy" comes. Draw, boys, up to the fire 

I'll tell you what a wondrous dream I had. 

And woke with on my Sarah's wedding day. . . . 

I had an uncle back in Ireland 

Who failed at everything except his Latin. 

He could spout Virgil till your head would ache. 

And when I was a boy he used to roll 

The Latin out, translating as he went : 

The ghost of Hector comes before ^Eneas, 

And warns him to leave Troy. His mother Venus 

Tells him to settle in another land ! 

The Delphic oracle misunderstood, 

^neas goes to Crete. He finds at last 

His ships are fired by the Trojan women, 

Great conflagration ! Down he goes to hell, 

And then the Sibyl shows him what's to be : 

What race of heroes shall descend from him, 

[7] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And how a city's walls he shall up-build 
In founding Rome. ... 

So last night In my dream 
This uncle came to me and said to me : 
"'Aeneas' Whistler you shall found a city. 
You've built Fort Dearborn, that is the beginning. 
Imperial Rome could be put in a corner 
Of this, the city which you'll found. Fear not 
The wooden horse, but have a care for cows : 
I see ships burning on your muddy Tiber, 
And toppling walls." I dreamed I felt the heat. 
But then a voice said "Where's your little boy 
George Washington .?" — come sit on father's knee, 
And hear about my dream — there little boy 1 
Well, as I said, I felt the heat and then 
I felt the crudest cold and then the voice : 
"You cannot come to Russia with your boy. 
He'll make his way." I woke up with these words, 
And found the covers off and I was cold. 
And then no sooner did I fall asleep 
Than this old uncle re-appeared and said : 
"A race of heroes shall descend from you. 
Here shall a city stand greater than Rome." 
With that he seemed to alter to a witch, 
A woman's form, the voice of him changed too. 
And said: "I'm Mother Shipton, Captain Whistler. 
"Men through the mountains then shall ride, 

[8] 



CAPTAIN JOHN WHISTLER 

"Nor horse nor ass be by their side" — 
Think, gentlemen, what it would be to ride 
In carriages propelled by steam 1 And then 
This dream became a wonder in a wonder 
Of populous streets, of flying things, of spires 
Of driven mist that looked like fiddle strings 
From tree to tree. Of smoke-stacks over-topping 
The tallest pine ; of bridges built of levers, 
And such a haze of smoke, and cloud like shapes 
Passing along like etchings one by one : 
Cathedrals, masts as thick as hazel thickets. 
And buildings great as hills, and miles of lights. 
Till by some miracle the sun had moved. 
And rose not in the east but in the south. 
And shone along the shore line of the Lake, 
As he shines o'er the Lake when he arises, 
And makes an avenue of gold, no less 
This yellow sand took glory of his light. 
And where he shone it seemed an avenue. 
And over it, where now the dunes stretch south, 
Along the level shore of sand, there stood 
These giant masses, etchings as it were ! 
And Mother Shipton said : "This is your city. 
"A race of heroes shall descend from you ; 
"Your son George Washington shall do great deeds. 
"And if he had a' son what would you name him .?" 
Well, as I went to sleep with thoughts of Sarah 
And praises for James Abbott, it was natural 

[9l 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

That I should say "I'd name him after James." 
"Well done" said Mother Shipton and then van- 
ished. . . . 
I woke to find the sun-light in my room, 
And from my barracks window saw the Lake 
Stirred up to waves slate-colored by the wind ; 
Some Indians loitering about the fort. 
They knew this was James Abbott's wedding day, 
And Sarah's day of leaving. 

Soldiers 1 Comrades 1 
What is most real, our waking hours, our dreams ? 
Where was I in this sleep ^ What are our dreams 
But lands which lie below our hour's horizon, 
Yet still are seen in a reflecting sky, 
And which through earth and heaven draw us on ? 
Look at me now 1 Consider of yourselves : 
Housed, fed, yet lonely, in this futile task 
By this great water, in this waste of grass. 
Close to this patch of forest, on this river 
Where wolves howl, and the Indian waits his chance — 
Consider of your misery, your sense 
Of worthless living, living to no end : 
I tell you no man lives but to some end. 
He may live only to increase the mass 
Wherewith Fate is borne-down, or just to swell 
The needed multitude when the hero passes, 
To give the hero heart ! But every man 

[lol 



CAPTAIN JOHN WHISTLER 

Walks, though In blindness, to some destiny 
Of human growth, who only helps to fill, 
And helps that way alone, the empty Fate 
That waits for lives to give it Life. 

And look 
Here are we housed and fed, here is a fire 
And here a bed. A hundred years ago 
Marquette, La Salle, scarce housed and poorly fed 
Gave health and life itself to find the way 
Through icy marshes, treacherous swamps and forests 
For this Fort Dearborn, where to-night we sit 
Warming ourselves against a roaring hearth. 
And what's our part I It is not less than theirs. 
And what's the part of those to come f Not less 
Than ours has been ! And what's the life of man ? 
To live up to the God In him, to obey 
The Voice which says : You shall not live and rest. 
Nor sleep, nor mad delight nor senses fed, 
Nor memory dulled, nor tortured hearing stopped 
To drown my Voice shall leave you to forget 
Life's impulse at the heart of Life, to strive 
For men to be, for cities, nobler states 
Moving foreshadowed in your dreams at night, 
And realized some hundred years to come. 
When this Fort Dearborn, you and all of you, 
And I who sit with pipe and son on knee. 
Regretting a dear daughter, who this hour 

[II] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Is somewhere in the darkness (like our souls 
Which move In darkness, listening to the beat 
Of our mysterious hearts, or with closed eyes 
Sensing a central Purpose) shall be dust — 
Our triumphs, sorrows, even our names forgotten. 
And all we knew lost In the wreck and waste 
And change of things. And even what we did 
For cities, nobler states, and greater men 
Forgotten too. It matters not. We work 
For cities, nobler states and greater men, 
Or else we die In Life which Is the death 
Which soldiers must not die ! 

Ill 

EMILY BROSSEAU: IN CHURCH 

Domine, Jesu Christe, Rex gloriae, libera animus omnium 
fidelium defunctorum de poenis inferni, et de pro- 
funda lacu. 

Leave me now and I will watch here through the night, 

And I'll put In new candles. If these fail. 

I'll sit here as I am, where I can see 

His brow, his nose's tip and thin white hair. 

And just beyond his brow, above the altar, 

The red gash in the side of Jesus like 

A candle's flame when burning to the socket. 

Go all of you, and leave me. I don't care 

[12] 



EMILY BROSSEAU: IN CHURCH 

How cold the church grows. Michael Angelo 
Went to a garret, which was cold, and stripped 
His feet, and painted till the chill of death 
Took hold of him, a man just eighty-seven, 
And I am ninety, what's the odds ? — go now . . . 

Now Jean we are alone ! Your very stillness 

Is like intenser life, as in your brow 

Your soul was crystallized and made more strong, 

And nearer to me. You are here, I feel you. 

I close my eyes and feel you, you are here. 

Therefore a little talk before the dawn. 

Which will come soon. Dawn always comes too soon 

In times like this. It waits too long in times 

Of absence, and you will be absent soon. . . . 

I want to talk about my happiness, 

My happy life, the part you played in it. 

There never was a day you did not kiss me 

Through nearly seventy years of married life. 

I had two hours of heaven in my life. 

The first one was the dance where first we met. 

The other when last fall they brought me roses, 

Those ninety roses for my birth-day, when 

They had me tell them of the first Chicago 

I saw when just a child, about the Fort; 

The cabins where the traders lived, who worked, 

And made the fortune of John Jacob Astor. 

[13] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Poor Jean ! It's scarce a week since you were struck. 

You sat down in your chair, 'twas after dinner, 

Then suddenly I saw your head fall forward. 

You could not speak when I went over to you. 

But afterwards when you were on the bed 

I leaned above you and you took the ribbon, 

That hung down from my cap and pressed it trembling 

Against your lips. What triumph in your death ! , 

Your death was like a mass, mysterious, rich 

Like Latin which the priests sing and the choir — 

May angels take you and with Lazarus, 

Once poor, receive you to eternal rest. . . . 

Two hours of heaven in my life that's true ! 

And years between that made life more than good. 

My first sight of Chicago stands for all 

My life became for you and all I've lived. 

The year is 1829, you know of course. 

I've told you of the trip in Prairie schooners 

From Ft. Detroit round the lake, we camped 

Along the way, the last time near the place 

Where Gary and the steel mills are to-day. 

And the next morning what a sky ! as blue 

As a jay's wing, with little rifts of snow 

Along the hollows of the yellow dunes. 

And some ice in the lake, which lapped a little,' 

And purplish colors far off in the north. 

So round these more than twenty miles we drove 

That April day. And when we came as far 

[14] 



EMILY BROSSEAU: IN CHURCH 

As thirty-ninth or thirty-first perhaps — 
Just sand hills then — I never can forget It — 
What should I see ? Fort Dearborn dazzling bright, 
All newly white-washed right against that sky, 
And the log cabins round it, far away 
The rims of forests, and between a prairie 
With wild flowers in the grasses red and blue — 
Such wild flowers and such grasses, such a sky, 
Such oceans of sweet air. In which were rising 
Straight up from Indian wigwams spires of smoke, 
About where now the Public Library stands 
On Randolph Street. And as we neared the place 
There was the flag, a streaming red and white 
Upon a pole within the Fort's inclosure. 
I cried for happiness though just a child, 
And cry now thinking. . . . 

I must set this candle 
To see your pale brow better ! What's the hour ? 
The night is passing, and I have so much 
To say to you before the dawn. . . . 

Well, then 
The first hour that I call an hour of heaven : 
Who was that man that built the first hotel ? — 
It stood across the river from the Fort — 
No matter. But before that I had heard 
Nothing beside a fiddle, living here 

[IS] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Amid the traders eleven years or so. 
And this man for his hotel's opening 
Had brought an orchestra from somewhere. Think 
Bass viols, violins, and horns and flutes. 
I'm dressed up Hke a princess for those days. 
Vm sixteen years of age and pass the door, 
Enter the ball-room where such candle-light 
As I had never seen shone on me, they 
Bored sockets in suspended wheels of wood 
And hung them from the ceiling, chandeliers ! 
And at that moment all the orchestra 
Broke into music, yes, it was a waltz ! 
And in that moment — what a moment-full ! 
This hotel man presented you and said 
You were my partner for the evening. Jean 
I call this heaven, for its youth and love ! 
I'm sixteen and you're twenty and I love you. 
I slip my arm through yours for you to lead me, 
You are so strong, so ruddy, kind and brave. 
I want you for a husband, for a friend, 
A guide, a solace, father to the child 
That I can bear. Oh Jean how can I talk so 
In this lone church at mid-night of such things. 
With all these candles burning round your face. 
I who have rounded ninety-years, and look 
On what was sweet, long seventy years ago } 
Feeling this city even at mid-night move 
In restlessness, desire, around this church, 

[i6] 



EMILY BROSSEAU: IN CHURCH 

Where once I saw the prairie grass and flowers ; 

And saw the Indians in their colored trappings 

Pour from a bottle of whisky on the fire 

A tribute to the Spirit of the world, 

And dance and sing for madness of that Spirit ? 

Well, Jean, my other hour. I've spoken before 

Of our long life together glad and sad. 

But mostly good. I'm happy for it all. 

This other hour is marked, I call it heaven 

Just as I told you, not because they stood 

Around me as a mystery from the past. 

And looked at me admiringly for my age, 

My strength in age, my life that spanned the growth 

Of my Chicago from a place of huts, 

Just four or five, a fort, and all around it 

A wilderness, to what it is this hour 

Where most three million souls are living, nor 

Because I sa\Y this rude life, and beheld 

The World's Fair where such richnesses of time 

Were spread before me — not because of these, 

Nor for the ninety roses, nor the tribute 

They paid me in them, nor their gentle words — 

These did not make that hour a heaven, no — 

Jean, it was this : 

First I was just as happy 
As I was on that night we danced together, 
c [17] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And that I could repeat that hour's great bHss 

At ninety years, though in a diflferent way, 

And for a different cause, that was the thing 

That made me happy. For you see it proves, 

Just give the soul a chance it's happiness 

Is endless, let the body house it well, 

Or house it ill, but give it but a chance 

To speak itself, not stifle it, or hush it 

With hands of flesh against the quivering strings, 

Made sick or weak by time, the soul will find 

Delights as good as youth has to the end. 

And even if the flesh be sick there's Heine : 

Few men had raptures keen as his, though lying 

With death beside him through a stretch of years. 

It must be something in the soul as well. 

Which makes me think a third hour shall be mine 

In spite of death, yes Jean it must be so ! 

I want that third hour, I shall pray for it 

Unceasingly, I want it for my soul's sake : 

Which will have happiness in its very power 

And dignity that time nor change can hurt. 

For if I have it you shall have it too. 

And in that third hour we shall give each other 

Something that's kindred to the souls we gave 

That night we danced together — but much more ! . 

It's dawn ! Good bye till then, my Jean, good bye ! 

[i81 



THE OUIJA BOARD 

IV 

THE OUIJA BOARD 

{David Kennison died in Chicago February 24.th, 18^2, 
aged 11^ years, J months and ly days. Veteran of 
the Revolution.) 

David Kennison is here born at Kingston in the year 

Seventeen thirty-seven and it's nineteen sixteen now, 
Dumped the tea into the harbor, saw CornwaUis* 
career 
End at Yorktown with the sullen thunder written 
on his brow. 

Was at West Point when the traitor Arnold gave up 
the fort, 
Saw them hang Major Andre for a spy and his due. 
Settled down in Sackett's Harbor for a rest of a sort, 
Till I crossed the western country in the year forty- 
two. 

And I saw Chicago rising in the ten years to come, 
Ere I passed in the fifties to the peace of the dead. 

Now where is there a city in the whole of Christendom 
Where such roar is and such walking is around a 
grave's head .^ 

[19] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Oh, 'twas fighting as a soldier in the wars of the land ; 

And 'twas giving and living to make the people free 
That kept me past a century an oak to withstand \ 

The heat and snow and weevils that break down a 
tree. 

There were other dead around me with a slab to mark 
When they heaped the final pillow for my honor's 
meed. 

Now the lovers stopping curiously in Lincoln Park 
Look at the bronze tablet on my boulder and read : 

How I fought at Long Island and fought at White 
Plains — 
What does it mean you lovers who scan what is 
scored 
On the tablet on my boulder ? — Why the task remains 
To make the torch brighter and to keep clean the 
sword. 

Go labor for the future. Go make the cities great : 
There are other realms to conquer for the men to 
be. 

For it's toil and it's courage that solve a soul's fate, 
And it's giving and living that make a people free ! 



[20] 



HANGING THE PICTURE 

V 

HANGING THE PICTURE 

Before you pull that string, 

And strip away that veil, 

I rise to enter my objection 

To the hanging of Archer Price's picture 

Here in this hall. . . . 

For I'll venture the artist has tried to soften 

The vain and shifty look of the eyes ; 

And the face that looked like a harte-beest's. 

And the rabbit mouth that looked like a horse's, 

Lipping oats from a leather bag 1 

I knew this man in '28 

When he drifted here from Maine, he said. 

And now it's eighteen ninety two: 

This year is sacred to conquerors, 

Discoverers and soldiers. 

And I object to the hanging of pictures 

Of men who trade while others fight. 

And follow the army to get the loot. 

And rest till other men are tired, 

Then grab the spoils while the workers sleep. 

I would like to burn all masks. 

And padded shoes, 

And smash all dark lanterns. 

[21] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And take all friends of the people 

And brand them with the letter "B," 

Which means "Betrayer." 

And I would like to enter the Kingdom of Heaven 

Just to see the publicans who will be there, 

And the Archer Prices who will not be there ! 

You call him a great man, 

And a prophetic man, 

And a leader, and a savior, 

And a man who was wise in an evil world 

Of tangled interests and selfish power. 

And who knew the art of compromise. 

And how to get half when you can't get all ! 

You haven't probed deep enough in this man. 

For he was great as the condor is great. 

And prophetic as the wolf is prophetic. 

And a leader as the jackal is a leader. 

And his wisdom was that of the python, 

Which will swallow a hare when no pig is at hand ! 

He was rich. 

He was well known. 

His name was linked with lofty things, 

And adorned all noble committees. 

And he was a friend of art and music — 

He gave them money ! 

He was on the Library Board, 

[22] 



HANGING THE PICTURE 

And the Commerce Board, and every board 

For building up the city — 

I admit these things. They were pawns on the board 

for him. 
That's why I rise to enter my objection 
To hanging his picture here ! 

We had no telephones in those days. 

But there was a certain man of power, 

A man who was feared, as one might fear 

A lion that hides in the jungle. 

And this man sat in a hidden room 

As a banded-epira waits and watches. 

And he went from this room to his house in a cab, 

And back to this room in a cab. 

But everyone knew that Archer Price 

Was doing the will of the man in the room. 

Though you never saw the two together. 

As you never could see together the leaders 

Of some of these late bi-partisan deals. 

But Archer Price was so much alike 

This secret man in the room ; 

And did so much what we knew 

He wanted done, and built the city 

So near to the heart's desire of this man 

That all of us knew that the two conferred 

In spite of the fact that telephones 

Had never been heard of then. . . . 

[23] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Well, because of this man in the room, 

As well as because of Price himself, 

Everyone feared him, no one knew 

Exactly how to fight him. 

Everyone hated him, although 

Everyone helped him to wealth and power. 

He was what you'd call a touch-me-not. 

If you clodded him you ran the risk 

Of hitting the teacher, or maybe a child. 

He always walked with the wind to his back : 

If you spit at him it would fly in your face. 

And though we suspected more than we knew 

Of his subtle machinations, 

No one could attack him for what was known. 

Because the things he was known to be doing 

Were service to those, who couldn't allow 

The service to be imperiled. 

There never was a time 
This man was out of public office. 
He clung to the people's treasury 
As a magnet clings to a magnet. 
Why didn't your orator tell this audience 
He started In life as town assessor .? 
That would have left me with nothing to say 
Except he traded the fixing of taxes 
For business ! 

Oh, you people who unveil pictures ! 

[Hi 



HANGING THE PICTURE 

In his day no one was permitted to say this. 

And now everyone has forgotten it. 

It is useless to say it. 

And here in the year of Columbus 

You are unveiling his picture ! 

And you say the Illinois and Michigan Canal 

Had never been built or saved for the people 

Except for Archer Price ! 

Why don't you tell that he fought the Canal in 1830, 

Saying it would burden the people ? 

And why don't you say that even then 

He was acting for his own interests and the man in the 

room ^ 
Why don't you show that his art of compromise 
Created the Public Canal Committee 
When he failed to block the Canal, 
And failed of appointment as Canal Commissioner ? 
Why don't you show that through that committee 
The squatters stole the wharves on the river ? 
Why don't you show how his friends grew rich 
Through buying the lands at public sales 
Which were given to build the Canal, 
And which the Committee was pretending to conserve ? 
Why don't you show that through that Committee, 
Pretending to be a friend of the people. 
He opened a fight at length on the squatters 
And won the fight, and won the wharves 

[25] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

For himself and a clique of friends ? 
Why don't you tell — ? 

Cry me down if you will — 
I object — I object — 

VI 

THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATES 

Have you ever seen the Douglas monument 

There in Chicago ? 

They say it's by the Lake, 

With a column of marble a hundred feet high, 

And a statue of The Little Giant on top, 

With knit brows and lion face. 

Like he used to look when debatin' with Linkern. 

I want to go up to Chicago sometime, 

To see that monument. 

And some one told me 

They carved on his marble coffin the words : 

"Tell my children to obey the laws, 

And uphold the constitution." 

Well, they couldn't have put sadder words 

On his coffin than that. 

For it was tryin' to obey the laws and support the 

constitution 
That killed him. 

And why should his children do the same thing and die ? 

[261 



THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATES 

You young men of this day don't care, 
And you don't understand the old questions. 
But a man's life is always worth understanding, 
Especially a man's like The Little Giant. 
Now this was the point : 
There was that devilish thing slavery, 
And The Little Giant, as senator, 
Put through a bill for leaving it to the people 
Whether they would have slavery in Kansas or Ne- 
braska, 
Or any other territory, and that was popular sover- 
eignty — 
And sounds democratic ; but three years later 
Along comes the Supreme Court and says : 
The people of a territory must have slavery 
Whether they want it or not, because 
The constitution is for slavery, and it follows the flag 1 
Well, there was The Little Giant 
Caught between the law and the constitution ! 
And tryin' to obey 'em both ! 
Or better still he was like Lem Reese's boy 
Who was standin' one time one foot on shore, 
And one in a skiff, baitin' a hook. 
And all at once Col. Lankford's little steamer 
Came along and hobbled the skiff ; 
And it started to glide out into the river, — 
Why the boy walked Hke a spread compass 
For a month. 

[27] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

For the skiff was movin', and that's the law; 
And his other foot slipped on the slimy bank, 
And that's the constitution ! 

But if you want to consider a minute 

How Time plays tag with people, 

And how no one can tell 

When he'll be It, just think : 

There was Bill McKInley 

Who kept the old constitution's from goin' to the 

Philippines, 
And they elected him. 
And here was The Little Giant, 
Who wanted to send it everywhere, 
And they defeated him. 
So you see it depends on what it means 
Whether you want to keep it or send it. 
And nobody knows what it means — 
Not even judges. 

But just the same them were great days. 

One time The Little Giant came here with Linkern 

And talked from the steps of the Court-house; 

And you never saw such a crowd of people : 

Democrats, Whigs, and Locofocos, 

Know-nothings and Anti-masonics, 

Blue lights. Spiritualists, Republicans 

Free Soilers, Socialists, Americans — such a crowd. 

[28] 



THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATES 

Linkern's voice squeaked up high, 

And didn't carry. 

But Douglas ! 

People out yonder in Proctor's Grove, 

A mile from the Court House steps, 

Could hear him roar and hear him say : 

"I'm going to trot him down to Egypt 

And see if he'll say the things he says 

To the black republicans in northern Illinois." 

It made you shiver all down your spine 

To see that face and hear that voice — 

And that was The Little Giant ! , 

And then on the other hand there was 

Abe Linkern standing six foot four, 

As thin as a rail, with a high-keyed voice. 

And sometimes solemn, and sometimes comic 

As any clown you ever saw, 

And runnin' Col. Lankford's little steamer. 

As it were, you know, which would bobble the skiff. 

Which was the law ; and The Little Giant's other foot 

Would slip on the bank, which was the constitution. 

And you could almost hear him holler "ouch." 

And Linkern would say : This argument 

Of the Senator's is thin as soup 

Made from the shadow of a starved pigeon 1 

And then the crowd would yell, and the cornet band 

Would play, and men would walk away and say : 

[29] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Linkern floored him. And others would say : 

He aint no match for The Little Giant. 

But I'll declare if I could decide 

Which whipped the other. 

For to let the people decide whether they wanted 

slavery 
Sounded good. 

And to have the constitution in force sounded good. 
And not to have any slavery at all sounded good. 
But so far as the law was concerned, 
And where it was, and what you could do with it 
It was like the shell game : 
Now you see the little ball and now you don't ! 
Who's got a dollar to say where the little ball is ? 

But when you try to obey the laws and support the 

constitution. 
It reminds me of a Campbellite preacher 
We had here years ago. 

And he debated with the Methodist preacher 
As to whether immersion or sprinkling 
Was the way to salvation. 
And the Campbellite preacher said : 
"The holy scripture says : 
*And Jesus when he was baptised 
Went up straightway out of the water.' 
And how could he come up out of the water 
If he wasn't in ?" asked the Campbellite preacher, 

[30] 



THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATES 

Pointing a long finger at the Methodist preacher. 

"And how could he be in without being immersed ?" 

Well, the Campbellite preacher won the debate. 

But the next day Billy Bell, 

An infidel we had here. 

Met the Campbellite preacher and said : 

^' I suppose it wouldn't be possible for a man 

To stand in water up to his knees 

And have water sprinkled on his head, would it.^" 

And the Campbellite preacher said : 

"Get thee behind me Satan," and went on. 

Well Linkern was kind of an infidel. 

And The Little Giant got caught in his own orthodoxy, 

And his ability for debate led him into 

The complete persuading of himself. 

And by arguin' for the law 

He made Linkern appear 

As bein' against the law. 

But just think, for a minute, young man : 

Here is The Little Giant the greatest figure in all the 

land 
And the wheel of fortune turns 
And he stands by Linkern's side and holds 
His hat while Linkern takes the oath 
As president ! 

Then the war comes and his leadership 
Has left him, and millions who followed him 

[31] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Turn from him, and then Death comes, 
And sits by him and says : Your time's up ! 
So I say when they put up that monument 
And carved those words upon it 
They had just as well have carved the words, 
"He took poison." 

Which reminds me : 

There was a family over at Dutchland 

Named Nitchie. 

And my boy writes me from college 

That there is a writer named Nitchie 

Who says — w^ll I can't tell you just now. 

But if you'll look at things close 

You'll see that Linkern was against the legal law, 

And Douglas against the moral law so-called, 

And neither cared for the other's law — 

And that was the real debate ! 

Linkern rode over laws to save the Union, 

And Douglas said he cared more for white supremacy 

Than anything else. 

Which being true, who can tell 

Who won the debates .? 

Is it better to have the Union, 

Or better to have a master race ? 

I'll go over to the post-office now 

And see if there's a letter from my boy. 

[32] 



VII 

AUTOCHTHON 

In a rude country some four thousand miles 

From Charles' and Alfred's birthplace you were born, 

In the same year. But Charles and you were born 

On the same day, and Alfred six months later. 

Thus start you in a sense the race together. . . . 

Charles goes to Edinburgh, afterwards 

His father picks him for the ministry. 

And sends him off to Cambridge where he spends 

His time on beetles and geology. 

Neglects theology. Alfred is here 

Fondling a Virgil and a Horace. 

But you — these years you give to reading ^Esop, 

The Bible, lives of Washington and Franklin, 

And Kirkham's grammar. 

In 1830 Alfred prints a book 
Containing "Mariana," certain other 
Delicate, wind-blown bells of airy music. 
And in this year you move from Indiana 
And settle near Decatur, Illinois, 
Hard by the river Sangamon where fever 
And ague burned and shook the poor 
Swamp saffron creatures of that desolate land. 
While Alfred walks the flowering lanes of England, 
D [33] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And reads Theocritus to the song of larks 
You clear the forests, plow the stumpy land, 
Fight off the torments of mosquitoes, flies 
And study Kirkham's grammar. 

In 1 83 1 Charles takes a trip 

Around the world, sees South America, 

And studies living things in Galapagos, 

Tahiti, Keeling Island and Tasmania. 

In 183 1 you take a trip 

Upon a flat-boat down to New Orleans 

Through hardships scarcely less than Joliet 

And Marquette knew in 1673, 

Return on foot to Orfutt's store at Salem. 

By this time Jacques Rousseau was canonized ; 
Jefferson dead but seven years or so ; 
Brook Farm was budding, Garrison had started 
His Liberator^ Fourier still alive; 
And Emerson was preening his slim wings 
For flights into broad spaces — there was stir 
Enough to sweep the Shelleyan heads, — in truth 
Shelley was scarcely passed a decade then. 
^ Old Godwin still was writing, wars for freedom 
Swept through the Grecian Isles, America 
Had "isms" in abundance, but not one 
Took hold of you. 

In 1832 Alfred has drawn 

[34] 



AUTOCHTHON 

Out of old Mallory and Grecian myths 

The "Lady of Shalott" and fair "CEnone," 

And put them into verse. 

This is the year you fight the Black Hawk war, 

And issue an address to Sangamon's people. 

You are but twenty-three, yet this address 

Would not shame Charles or Alfred ; it's restrained, 

And sanely balanced, without extra words, 

Or youth's conceits, or imitative figures, dreams 

Or "isms" of the day. No, here you hope 

That enterprise, morality, sobriety 

May be more general, and speak a word 

For popular education, so that all 

May have a "moderate education" as you say. 

You make a plea for railroads and canals. 

And ask the suffrages of the people, saying 

You have known disappointment far too much 

To be chagrined at failure, if you lose. 

They take you at your word and send another 

To represent them in the Legislature. 

Then you decide to learn the blacksmith's trade. 

But Fate comes by and plucks you by the sleeve, 

And changes history, doubtless. 

By '36 when Charles returns to England 
You have become a legislator ; yes 
You tried again and won. You have become 
A lawyer too, by working through the levels 

[35] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Of laborer, store-keeper and surveyor, 

Wrapped up in problems of geometry, 

And Kirkham's grammar and Sir William Blackstone, 

And Coke on Littleton, and Joseph Chitty. 

Brook Farm will soon bloom forth, Francois Fourier 

Is still on earth, and Garrison is shaking 

Terrible lightning at Slavocracy. 

And certain libertarians, videlicet 

John Greenleaf Whittier and others, sing 

The trampling out of grapes of wrath ; in truth 

The Hebrews taught the idealist how to sing 

Destruction in the name of God and curse 

Where strength was lacking for the sword — but you 

Are not a Robert Emmet, or a Shelley, 

Have no false dreams of dying to bring In 

The day of Liberty. At twenty-three 

You're measuring the world and waiting for 

Dawn's mists to clear that you may measure It, 

And know the field's dimensions ere you put 

Your handle to the plow. 

In 1833 a man named Hallam, 

A friend of Alfred's, died at twenty-two. 

Thereafter Alfred worked his hopes and fears 

Upon the dark impasto of this loss 

In delicate colors. And in 1850 

When you were sunk in melancholia. 

As one of no use in the world, adjudged 

[36] 



AUTOCHTHON 

To be of no use by your time and place, 

Alfred brought forth his Dante dream of life, 

Received the laureate wreath and settled down 

With a fair wife amid entrancing richness 

Of sunny seas and silken sails and dreams 

Of Araby, 

And ivied halls, and meadows where the breeze 

Of temperate England blows the hurrying cloud. 

There, seated like an Oriental king 

In silk and linen clothed took the acclaim 

Of England and the world ! . . . 

This is the year 
You sit in a little office there in Springfield, 
Feet on the desk and brood. What are you thinking ? 
You're forty-one ; around you spears are whacking 
The wind-mills of the day, you watch and weigh. 
The sun-light of your mind quivers about 
The darkness every thinking soul must know, 
And lights up hidden things behind the door. 
And in dark corners. You have fathomed much, 
Weighed life and men. O what a sphered brain. 
Strong nerved, fresh blooded, firm in plasmic fire. 
And ready for a task, if there be one ! 
That is the question that makes brooding thought : 
For you know well men come into the world 
And find no task, and die, and are not known — 
Great sphered brains gone into dust again. 
Their light under a bushel all their days 1 

[37] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

In 1859, Charles publishes 

His "Origin of Species," and 'tis said 

You see it, or at least hear what it is. 

Out of three travelers in a distant land 

One writes a book of what the three have seen. 

Perhaps you never read much, yet perhaps 

Some books were just a record of your mind. 

How had it helped you in your work to read 

The "Idylls of the King" ? As much, perhaps, 

Had Alfred read the Northwest Ordinance 

Of 1787. . . . 

But in this year 
Of '59 you're sunk in blackest thought 
About the country maybe, but, I think, 
About this riddle of our mortal life. 
You were a poet, Abraham, from your birth. 
That makes you think, and makes you deal at last 
With things material to the tune of laws 
Moving in higher spaces when you're called 
To act — and show a poet moulding stuff 
Too tough for spirits practical to mould. 
Here are you with your feet upon the desk. 
You have been beaten in a cause which kept 
Some strings too loose to catch the vibrate waves 
Of a great Harp whose music you have sensed. 
You are a mathematician using symbols 
Like Justice, Truth, with keenness to perceive 

[381 



AUTOCHTHON 

Disturbance of equations, a logician 

Who sees invariable laws, and beauty born 

Of finding out and following the laws. 

You are a Plato brooding there in Springfield. 

You are a poet with a voice for Truth, 

And never to be claimed by visionaries 

Who chant the theme of bread and bread alone. 

But here and now 
They want you not for Senator, it seems. 
You have been tossed to one side by the rush 
Of world events, left stranded and alone, 
And fitted for no use, it seems. In Springfield. 
A country lawyer with a solid logic, ,■ 

And gift of prudent phrase which has a way 
Of hardening under time to rock as hard 
As the enduring thought you seal It with. 
You've reached your fiftieth year, your occultatlon 
Should pass. If ever, we should see a light : 
In all your life you have not seen a city. 
But now our Springfield giant strides Broadway, 
Thrills William Cullen Bryant, sets a wonder 
Going about the East, that Kirkham's grammar 
Can give a man such speech at Cooper Union, 
Which even Alfred's, trained to Virgil's style, 
Cannot disdain for matching in the thought 
With faultless clearness. 



[39] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And still in i860 all the Brahmins 

Have fear to give you power. 

You are a backwoodsman, a country lawyer 

Unlettered in the difficult art of states. 

A denizen of a squalid western town, 

Dowered with a knack of argument alone, 

Which wakes the country school-house, and may lift 

Its devotees to Congress by good fortune. 

But then at Cooper Union intuitive eyes 

Had measured your tall frame, and careful speech, 

Your strength and self-possession. Then they came 

With that dramatic sense which is American 

Into the hall with rails which you had split, 

And called you Honest Abe, and wearing badges 

With your face on them and the poor catch words 

Of Honest Abe, as if you were a referee 

Like Honest Kelly, when in truth no man 

Had ever been your intimate, ever slapped you 

With brisk familiarity, or called you 

Anything but Mr. Lincoln, never 

Abe, or Abraham, and never used 

The Hello Bill of salutation to you — 

O great patrician, therefore fit to be 

Great democrat as well ! 

In 1862 Charles publishes 

"How Orchid Flowers are Fertilized by Insects," 

And you give forth a proclamation saying 

[40] 



AUTOCHTHON 

"The Union must have peace, or I wipe out 

The blot of negro slavery. You see, 

The symphony's the thing, and if you mar it, 

Contending over slavery, I remove 

The source of the disharmony. I admit 

The freedom of the press — but for the Union. 

When you abuse the Union, you shall stop. 

And when you are in jail, no habeas corpus 

Shall bring relief — I have suspended it." 

To-day they call you libertarian — 

Well, so you were, but just as Beauty is, 

And Truth is, even if they curb and vanquish 

The lower heights of beauty and of truth. 

They take your speech and deeds and give you place 

In Hebrew temples with Ezekiel, 

Habakkuk and Isaiah — you emerge 

From this association, master man 1 

You are not of the faith that breeds the ethic 

Wranglers, who make economic goals 

The strain and test of life. You are not one. 

Spite of your lash and sword threat, who believe 

God will avenge the weak. That is the dream 

Which builds millenniums where disharmonies 

That make the larger harmony shall cease — 

A dream not yours. And they shall lose you who 

Enthrone you as a prophet who cut through 

The circle of our human sphere of life 

To let in wrath and judgments, final tests 

[41] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

On Life around the price of sparrows, weights 
Wherewith bread shall be weighed 

There is a windless flame where cries and tears, 

Where hunger, strife, and war and human blood 

No shadow cast, and where the love of Truth, 

Which is not love of individual souls. 

Finds solace in a Judgment of our life. 

That is the Flame that took both Charles and You 

O leader in a Commonwealth of Thought ! 



[42 



VIII 

GRANT AND LOGAN AND OUR TEARS 

'Twixt certain parallels of latitude; 

Say thirty-seven and forty-two and more; 

And certain meridians, say ninety-one 

And eighty-seven plus. 

The top line drawn to leave the lower lake 

Shaped like a drinking cup to meet your needs ; 

To bind you to the east and west, 

Save you from tributary servitude 

Through Mississippi's River to the south. 

No sheds of hills to guard you on the north 

Against the arctic winds loosed at the pole, 

Or Medicine Hat parturient as the bag 

Of Mad ^olus. 

The valley and the river just a hall-way 

Making a draft for tropic heat in summer — 

Well, here you are in physiography. 

Upon a time black soil was poured 
Over your surface as the cook 
Pours chocolate on a cake. 
So you are fertile, never a land so rich. 

A little river flowing in the lake 
Vanishing in marshes up a mile or so 
Makes for a portage to another stream 

[43] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Which empties in another stream which empties 

Into the Mississippi. 

A spot between the lake and river lies 

Upon the highway binding east and west, 

And from the south and north where traders meet. 

This is the very place to build a fort — 

The fort becomes a town within a year, 

A great metropolis in half a cycle. 

Within a lifetime you have gained 

Some seven million souls. 

The land of Luther sends a swarming host; 

And Milton's land adventurous sons ; 

And Scandinavia's realm, 

And Michael Angelo's mountains, 

All Europe pours her wealth 

Of brawn and spirit on you, 

Until you are an empire 

Of restless vital men, and teeming towns. 

Before you were grown rich. 

And populous 

You brightened history ; 

Great men came from you. 

But now that you have cities and great treasure 

Where are your great ones ^ 

What is your genius ? 

What star enwraps your eyes ? 

[44] 



GRANT AND LOGAN AND OUR TEARS 

What heights allure you ? 

Hermaphroditic giant, sad and drunk 

Not gay, but foolish, stuffed with new baked bread, 

Who took away your gland pituitary. 

Abandoned you to such exaggerate growth 

Without increase of soul ? 

You blasphemous, yet afraid, 

Licentious, yet ashamed, 

Swaggering, yet blubbering 

And boasting of your rights. 

Materialist who woos the spiritual, 

Who holds aloft the cross from which you've sold 

The nails to junk-men. 

And makes a hackle from the crown of thorns 

Wherewith to hackle hemp to make a rope 

For your own hanging in the Philippines ! 

Who with one hand grabs off the widow's mite, 

And with the other tosses golden coins 

Into the beggar's cup. 

The black-snake whip in one hand, in the other 

A plentiful supply of surgeon's tape. Oh you ! 

A hard oppressor, charitably inclined, 

And keen to see and take the outward Image — 

Devoid of categories to reduce 

Its truth and meaning. 

No seed of old world thistles should be sown here, 
Or let to fly upon this soil. 

[4S] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Yet dogma has been sown here 

Men rise thereby who sow the seed again ; 

Accessory spirits keep the ground well stirred. 

It's gold and then it's power, but gold at last. 

And for the rest what are your dominant breeds ? 

Smug cultures where the aggregate mind is leather 

Gorged with the oil respectability 

Impervious to thought. 

These pick the eunuch type as being safe, 

American, it's called : 

Sleek, quiet, smiling, ready servitors 

Who for the salary, and that alone, 

(Require no bribes) 

Effect the business will. 

You are a hollow thing of steel, a cauldron. 

No monument of freedom. 

You're lettered, it is true, 

With many luminous truths that came to be 

Through deeds of men who died for liberty. 

But inside you there is a seething compost 

Of public schools, the ballot, journalism, 

Laws, jurisprudence, dogma, gold the chief 

Ingredient all stirred into a brew 

Wherewith to feed yourself and keep yourself 

The thing you are 1 

Not wholly slave, not really free. 

Desiring vaguely to be master moral, 

[46] 



GRANT AND LOGAN AND OUR TEARS 

And yet too sicklied over by old truths, 
The ballot, fear, plebian spirit, lack of mind, 
To reach patrician levels — 
Hermaphroditic giant, misty-eyed. 
Half blinded by ideals, half by greed ! 

Can nothing but a war. 

The prospect of a slaughter or the prize 

Of foreign lands, shake off your lethargy, 

And make you seem as big in spirit as 

You are in body ? 

Would you not love the general weal improved ? 

Would you not love your towns made beautiful ? 

Your halls and courts 

Reclaimed from dicers' oaths ? 

Your laws made just and tuned to god-like laws ? 

Your weights and measures made invariable ? 

Is there no tonic in such hopes as these 

To rouse you, giant ? 

I think you are Delilah 

Tricked out as Liberty for a fancy ball. 

Spiritless, provincal, shabby, dull. 

Where no ways gentle, no natural mirth prevails. 

You've put your Samson's eye out; he would see. 

You've chained him to the grinder, he would play. 

Be wise and human, free, courageous, fair. 

Of cleaner flesh and nobler spirit. Look 

[47] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

He may pull down your bastard temple yet, 
And make you use pentelic marble for 
Rebuilding of the Parthenon you planned, 
And leave the misse stone thrown in a heap 
For sheep gates in the walls of Ancient Zion ! 



I48] 



THE MUNICIPAL PIER 

Great snail whose lofty horns are knobbed with gold ; 
Long javelin of red-wood lying straight 
Upon the changing indigos which unfold 
In blues and chrysophrases from the gate 
Of this our city sea-ward, till the gull 
Becomes a gnat where lights annihilate 
The wings' last beat ! Or are you like a hull 
Pompeiian red upon the Nile's slate green ? 
Or are you like these clouds which fanciful 
Half open eyes make giant fish serene, 
And motionless as rifts of carbuncles 
Sunk in a waste of faience sky, between 
Such terrifying turquoise ? Darkness dulls 
The torches of your towers struck to flame 
By sun-set, and you mass amid the hulls 
Of shadows on the water, then reclaim 
This blackness with a thousand eyes of light ! 
Peirseus made with hands, which over-came 
The waters, where no point of land gave might 
To walls and slips, no Peiraic promontory 
Inspired our Hippodamus in his flight 
Sea-ward with docks, parades, an auditory 
E [49] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

For music and a dancing floor for youths, 
But only the sea tempted. Telling the story 
That grows within the loop, its dens and booths, 
And palaces of trade, is to omit 
The city's lofty genius and the truths 
Through which she works at best, against the wit 
Of creatures who would sell her body, take 
The money of the sale as perquisite 
For grossness in luxurious life. Awake 
Themistocles of us and carve the dream 
Of Burnham into stone ! Along this lake 
Such as no city looks on, to redeem 
Its shores from shrieks and crashes, refuse, smoke 
His architectural vision sketched the scheme 
Of harbors, islands, boulevards — he spoke 
For these, the concourse, stadium and a tomb 
For that dull infamy of filth whose cloak 
Is law, hiding the greedy hands that doom 
To long delay with bribery. He is gone 
These several years into the narrow room 
Where beauty is no more of walk or lawn. 
Or arch or peristyle, but still he says : 
" Work quickly into form what I have drawn, 
And give Chicago of these middle days 
The glory which it merits : To this Pier 
Make wide the marble way, build new the quays 
Give to the swimmers depths made fresh and clear, 
Lay out the flowering gardens, founts and pools 
[so] 



THE MUNICIPAL PIER 

Such as Versailles knows. The river steer 
Under the arches of two decked bascules." 
Look at the photographs of seventy-six, 
Whoever you are who mocks or ridicules 
This city, then imagine stones and bricks 
Which from such lowness rose, in fifty years 
By so much grown miraculous to transfix 
The future's wonder as ours is for piers 
Like this, Chicago ! O ye men who wield 
Small strength or great or none, too apt at sneers 
For men who did too little, you must yield 
Your names for judgment soon, have you done more 
To make this city great than Marshall Field ? 
While you were railing, idling, on this shore 
Hands silent, out of sight were plunged in toil. 
You woke one morning to the waters' roar 
And saw these gilded turrets flash and spoil 
The sun-light of the spring. What have you sown 
Of truth or beauty in this eager soil 
To make your living felt, your labor known ? 
Sometimes I see silk banners in the sky. 
And hear the sound of silver trumpets blown, 
And bells high turreted. And passing by 
This firmament of rolling blue great throngs 
Stream in an air of brilliant sun where I 
A century gone am of it, when my songs 
Are but a record of a day that died, 
And saw the end of desecrating wrongs. 
[SI] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

How sweet bells are borne on the evening tide 
High up where heaven is flushed and the 

sphere 
Looks down on temples, arches, where the wide 
Eternal waters thunder round the Pier ! 



[52 



GOBINEAU TO TREE 

Since our talk at Christiana I have read 

All you referred me to concerning Lincoln : 

His speeches and the story of the struggle 

Which ended in your war, not civil really 

But waged between two nations — but no matter ! 

To me whose life is closing, and whose life 

Was spent in struggle, much of misery. 

In friendship with De Tocqueville then at odds 

With him and his philosophy, who knew 

Bismarck, who saw the wars of Europe, saw 

Great men come up and fall, and systems change, 

Who probed into the Renaissance and mastered 

Religions and philosophies and wrote 

Concerning racial inequalities — 

To me I say this crisis of your time 

And country seems remote as it might be 

Almost in far Australia, trivial 

In substance and effect, or world result. 

And now your letter and these documents 

Concerning Douglas yield but scanty gold. 

Perhaps I've reached an age where I cannot 

Digest new matter, or resolve its worth, 

Extract its bearing and significance. 

[53] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

But since you ask me I am writing you 
What IVe arrived at. 

From the photographs 
And the descriptions of your Illinois, 
Where Lincoln spent his youth, I almost sicken : 
Small muddy rivers flanked by bottom lands 
So fat of fertile stuff the grossest weeds 
Thrive thriftier than in Egypt, round their roots 
Repulsive serpents crawl, the air is full 
Of loathsome insects, and along these banks 
An agued people live who have no life 
Except hard toil, whose pleasures are the dance 
Where violent liquor takes the gun or knife ; 
Who have no inspiration save the orgy 
Of the religious meeting, where the cult 
Of savage dreams is almost theirs. The towns 
Places of filth, of maddening quietude; 
Streets mired with mud, board sidewalks where the men, 
Like chickens with the cholera, stand and squeak 
Foul or half-idiot things ; near by the churches, 
Mere arch-ways to the grave-yard. Nothing here 
Of conscious plan to lift the spirit up. 
All is defeat of liberty in spite 
Of certain strong men, certain splendid breeds. 
The pioneers who made your state ; no beauty 
Save as a soul delves in a master book. 
And out of this your Lincoln came, not poor 

[54] 



GOBINEAU TO TREE 

As Burns was in a land of storied towers, 
But poor as a degenerate breed is poor 
Sunk down in squalor. 

Yet he seems a man 
Of master qualities. The muddy streets, 
And melancholy of a pastoral town. 
And sights of people sick, the stifling weeds 
Which grew about him left his spirit clean. 
Save for an ache that all his youth was spent 
In such surroundings. 

And observe the man ! 
Do poverty and life among such people 
Make him a libertarian .? Let us see. 
At twenty years he is a centralist. 
Stands for the bank which Andrew Jackson fought. 
And lauds protection, thinks of Washington 
Much more than Springfield. That is right I say — 
But call him not a democrat. 

Look here ! 
This master book of Stephens which you sent me 
Accuses Lincoln of imperial deeds, 
And breach of laws, and rightly so, in truth. 
That makes me love him, but the end he sought 
Is something else. At first that was the Union, 
Straight through it was the Union, but at last 

[ssl 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

The strain of Christian softness always his 
Which filled him full of hate for slavery 
Cropped out in freedom for your negro slaves, 
Which was an act of war, and so confessed. 
Not propped by law, but only by a will. 
Thus he became a man who broke all law 
To have his law. He killed a million men 
For what he called the Union, what he thought 
Was truth of Christian brotherhood. I say 
He killed a million men, for it is true 
Your war had never come, had he believed 
All government must rest in men's consent. 
What have we but a soul imperial ? 
A brother to me, standing for the strong, 
For master races, blindly at the work 
Of biologic mount ^ The cells of him 
That make him saint for radicals and dreamers 
Are but somatic, but the sperm of him 
Will propagate great rulers. 

See his face ! 
Its tragic pathos fools the idealist — 
But study it. First, then, observe the eyes. 
And tell me how within their gaze events 
Or men could lose their true proportions ! Here 
No visions swarm, no dreams with flashing wings 
Throw light upon them. No, they only look 
Across a boundless prairie, that is all. 

[56] 



GOBINEAU TO TREE 

And In that brow and nose we see a strength 

Slow, steady, wary, cautious — why this man 

Is your conservative, perhaps your best, 

Which is one reason why he loved the Union, 

And even said at last that government 

Of the people meant the Union — how absurd ! — 

Would perish, if it perished, clearly false ! 

And if 'twere true would be the better. Read 

My Renaissance, and other books, you'll see 

How I'd protect the master spirits, keep 

The master races pure ; how I detest 

The brotherhood of man, how I have shown 

The falseness of these Galilean dreams. 

These syrups strained in secret, used to drug 

The strong and make them equal with the weak. 

Such things are of the mind which weaves in space, 

A penalty of thought. Come back to earth, 

Live close to nature. Do not sap a rose 

To nourish cabbages, and call It truth 1 

Well, then, your negro's freed ! But what of that ^ 
You do not want him for a friend or spouse. 
I would not see him whipped, or made a bond. 
But tell me what you're thinking of who say 
His freedom Is a gain for liberty ? 
To buy men's labor is to buy their bodies. 
Your country now has entered on a course 
Of buying labor, wait and see what comes ! 

[57 I 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

I see processions filing through your land. 

They carry banners bearing Lincoln's face. 

And there are hordes who think the kingdom's coming : 

As Lincoln freed the slaves, one will arise 

To free all men 1 The signs before the war 

Are come again, portentous stars appear 

Which prophesied the war ! All revolutions 

Are so announced, the world is rising higher 

Through ordered revolutions, preordained 1 

Well, certain men look at these mad processions 

From well-protected windows, with a smile — 

They are your millionaires, they think they know 

The soul of Lincoln better than the crowds 

That carry banners with his picture on them. 

Yes, all they have they owe to Lincoln, they 

Grew strong through Lincoln. 

But are you content 
To have your negroes free, and millionaires 
In mastership of your republic ^ Where 
Are men to overlord your millionaires .? You know 
Out of the eater comes forth meat, who will 
Exhaust the strength of those whose strength was gained 
From blood of boys shed on the battle field ? 
What can you do to have a Renaissance 
That with a terrible light will drive to covert 
Owls, bats, and mousing hawks, that neither know 
What life is, whence they come, nor what they are, 

[S8] 



GOBINEAU TO TREE 

Who live by superstition, codes of slaves, 

Fear truth, are weak, and only hunger know — 

You must have such a Renaissance or die 

While slipping smugly, self sufficiently 

Along a way unvisioned, while you play 

The hypocrite as it was never played 

In any place, in any time on earth ! 

These things I see. But let me in conclusion 

Point to your Lincoln as a man who makes 

For power and beauty in your country, call it 

Republic if you will, the name is nothing. 

I say the vitalest force is love, not hate. 

I say that all great souls are lovers, but of what f 

Why, what great Goethe loved ! Your master men 

Should learn of Goethe, hold the crowd through him. 

And Lincoln was a lover, but of what ? 

Well not the cesspool of the black man's slavery. 

He loved the mathematics of high truths. 

And heightened spirituality, that's the reason 

Only a man like me can know him, that's 

The reason that your crude American thought 

Misses the man. 



[59] 



OLD PIERY 

I had a paying little refinery 

And all was well with me, and then 

The Trust edged up to me and wiped me out. 

So much for northern tariff, freedom 

Of niggers and New England rule. 

Praise God for sponging slavery from the Slate 1 

Well, then I was without a cent again, 

What should I do ? I wanted first a change, 

And rest in the use of other faculties, 

So I went out and took a farm. 

One thing leads to another. I wake up one morning 

And find a man from Illinois 

Become my neighbor on the adjoining farm. 

It's your John Cogdall, once of Petersburg, 

County of Menard, in Illinois, 

Precinct Indian Point, he said to me. 

We're friends at once, and visit back and forth. 

Two months ago I saw upon his table 

A copy of the Petersburg Observer — 

John likes to hear the home-town news — 

I pick it up and scan it through to see 

What a country paper is in Illinois. 

r6oi 



OLD PIERY 

And there I read this notice of "Old Piery," 
Real name Cordelia Stacke, dead thirty years, 
Whose money in the county treasury 
Is to be made escheat. So here I am 
Maneuvering for this money, rather shabby 
If I was not so devilish poor and pressed ; 
If letting Menard County have the prize 
Would profit any one, when I can prove 
Old Fiery was my great aunt, 
Her father and my grandfather brothers, 
When I can prove that I'm her only heir. 

Yes, but not as pure of blood. 

Her father was a judge in South Carolina, 

Her mother was a belle of New Orleans, 

My father told me so. Cordelia Stacke, 

"Old Fiery," as you called her, was a story 

We heard as children sitting on his knee. 

I know to prove my name is Stacke, 

And then because her name was Stacke 

Won't draw this money from your treasury, 

But wait 

Go to your vault and get that ring she wore. 

Slipped from her dead hand when you found her body 

Dead for a week amid her rags and stuff. 

Go get that ring, Mr. Treasurer of Menard, 

If I don't describe it 

Down to the finest point, 

f6il 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Just as I heard my father say 

The night she disappeared she wore a ring 

Of such and such, I'll go back to my farm 

In Mississippi. But I'll do much more 

ril trace her from Columbia to Old Salem ; 

rU show her crazed brain luring her along 

To find the spot where Lincoln kept the store 

Two miles from where we sit. 

She must have walked 

Across Virginia, West Virginia, 

Ohio, Indiana, or perhaps 

She footed it through Tennessee, Kentucky. 

I talked this morning with your county judge. 
He said she came here late in '65 
Or early '66^ 

Was seen by farmers near the Salem Mill, 
A loitering, mumbling woman. 
Not old, but looking old, and aging fast 
As she became a figure in your streets 
And alleys with a gunny-sack on back, 
Wherein she stuffed old bottles, paper, things 
She picked industriously and stored away. 
Would buy a bit of cold food at the baker's. 
Sometimes would sit on door steps eating cake, 
Which friendly hands had given her, then depart 
And say, "God rest your souls !" Attended mass 
On Sunday mornings, knew no one 
[62I 



OLD PIERY 

And had no friends. 

In *69 was found incompetent, 

And placed in charge of a conservator. 

Then as she was not dangerous went ahead 

At picking rags, 

Until in '97 passed away. 

Such was the life and death of a fine girl, 

The daughter of a judge in South Carolina 

And a belle of New Orleans. 

And after life at best knew life at worst, 

Beginning in a southern capitol 

Where she knew riches, admiration, place. 

She ended up in Petersburg, Illinois, 

A little croaking, mad but harmless waif, 

A withered leaf stirred by the Lincoln storm. 

And here's my guess : 

The fancy of her madness brought her here 

To see the country where 

The man who was a laborer, kept a store, 

Could rise therefrom, 

And bring such desolation to the South, 

Such sorrow to herself, that is my guess. 

The name's Cordelia Stacke inside this ring 
You tell me. She's the same no doubt. 
We all lived in Columbia when the troops 
Of Sherman whirled upon us to the sea. 

[63] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

I was a year old then. We were burned out, 

Lost everything. 

The troops came howling, plundering, 

And tossing combustible chemicals. 

They butchered just for sport our cattle ; 

Split chests and cabinets with savage axes ; 

Walked with their hob-nailed boots on our pianos ; 

Ran bayonets through pictures ; 

Rode horses in our parlors ; 

Broke open trunks and safes ; 

Searched cellars, opened graves for hoarded gold, 

And yelled "You dirty rebels now we've got you." 

They filled their bellies up with wine and whisky, 

And drunken, howling through Columbia's streets 

They carried vases, goblets, silver, gold. 

And rolled about with pockets full of loot. 

And then at last they stuck the torch to us 

And made a bon-fire of our city. 

Cordelia had a lover who was killed 
At Antietam fighting, not for niggers. 
But fighting back the fools who had been crazed 
By preachers, poets. Garrisons and Whittiers 
Who thought they worked for freedom, but instead 
Worked for New England's tariff — look at me 
How could the trust destroy me if the tariff 
Put no bricks in the bully's boxing gloves ? 
Well, then, Cordelia lost her lover, 

[64] 



OLD PIERY 

And when the troops came was a novitiate 

Nun at the convent. And the soldiers came 

To say the convent would be spared. But when 

The flames arose, she ran into the city 

To be beside her father and her mother. 

And she arrived 

Just as the soldiers entered the house for loot. 

Her mother was in bed half dead from fright, 

Not well at best. 

The soldiers broke the bedroom door, 

And howled for treasure. When the mother said 

There was no treasure, then they took her 

And flung her from the bed, ripped up the matress, 

Raked pictures from the walls, and smashed the mirrors, 

Tore closets open, then went to the cellar 

Leaving the mother lying on the floor, 

Who lay as dead. 

They drank what wine they found. 

Then seized the father, hung him to a tree 

To make him tell where he kept money hidden. 

The mother died in two days from the fright. 

The father was not killed, they took him down, 

And went their way carousing, yelling out 

"You dirty rebels now we've got you fair." 

Cordelia thought no doubt that both were dead. 

A passerby beheld her on the lawn 

Her hair let down and plucking at her dress. 

But who could stop to help her in that hell 

F [65] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Of a city burning and the howls and shouts, 
And falling walls ? 

Cordelia disappeared and from that night 
Was never seen or heard of. To his death 
Her father thought she met a terrible fate : 
Was raped and slaughtered. 

So you see 
All of this put together tells the story 
Of this poor creature whom you called "Old Piery." 
But let me add Cordelia had a horse 
She called" Old Piery'* — that fits in my proof. 
That's why she named herself "Old Piery" here, 
And gave your boys and girls a mocking name 
To hail her with as she went up your alleys ; 
With which to rap the windows of her room, 
Where bottles, cans, waste rags, and copper things. 
Old hoops of iron, staves, old boots and shoes, 
Springs, wheels of clocks, and locks of broken guns. 
Old boards and boxes, stacks of paper waste 
Stuffed up the place, and where unknown to all 
Paper and silver money hid in cracks 
Between the leaves of fouled and rain-soaked books. 
Or packed in jars were kept by her. You see 
Her mind was turned to treasure, hiding it 
Against the soldiers maybe, in this land 
Where Lincoln was a laborer, farmer, kept 
A store at Salem. 

[661 



OLD PIERY 

Well I say 
God rest her soul, as she was used to say. 
I want to raise a stone to mark her grave, 
And carve her name below a broken heart. 
For listen now : the ring Cordelia wore 
Was just a little band of gold and set 
With a cornelian heart — • am I not right ? 
I knew I was. 



[671 



THE TYPICAL AMERICAN? 

He calls himself an American citizen — 

And yet among such various breeds of men 

Who'll call him typical ? At any rate 

His faults or virtues one may predicate 

Somewhat as follows : He is sent to school 

Little or much, where he imbibes the rule 

Of safety first and comfort ; in his youth 

He joins the church and ends the quest of truth. 

Beyond the pages of theology 

He does not turn, he does not seem to see 

How hunger makes these Occidental creeds 

Sweet foliage on which the stomach feeds. 

Like those thick tussock moths upon the bole 

Of a great beech tree, feed the human soul 

And it will use the food for gold and power ! 

So men have used Christ Jesus' tender flower, 

And garnered it for porridge, opiates, 

And made it flesh of customs laws and states 

Where life repeats itself after a plan 

And breeds the typical American — 

As he regards himself. 

Our man matures 
And enters business, following the lures 
[681 



THE TYPICAL AMERICAN? 

Of great increase in business, more receipts — 
Upon this object center all his wits. 
And greater crops make needful larger barns, 
Vainly the parable of Jesus warns. 
His soul is now required, is taken away 
From living waters, in a little day 
Thrift, labor dooms him, leaves him banqueting 
Where nothing nourishes, they are the sting 
Which deadens him and casts him down at last 
Fly blown or numb or lifeless in this vast 
Surrounding air of Vital Power, where God 
Like the great sun, invites the wayside clod 
To live at full. 

In time our hero weds 
A woman like himself, and little heads 
Soon run about a house or pleasant yard. 
He must work now to keep them — have regard 
To the community, its thoughts and ways. 
What church is here .? He finds it best to praise 
Its pastor and its flock, his children send 
To Sunday school, if never he attend 
Its services. What politics obtain .? 
He must support the tussock leaf campaigns 
If he would eat himself. 'Tis best to join 
The party which controls the greater coin. 
And so what is his party's interest 
In business ? There must his soul invest 

[69] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Its treasure till the two are wholly one. 

Like the poor prostitute he is undone 

In virtue not alone, but he has made 

Himself a cog-wheel in the filthy trade 

Of justice courts, police and graft in wine 

Bondsmen and lawyers with a strength malign 

Moving the silken vestured marionette 

To laugh, entice and play the sad coquette. 

Yet if for bread you are compelled to ask 

The giver may impose an evil task, 

Or terms of life. Would you retain a roof, 

Mix with the crowd, nor dare to stand aloof. 

Our hero sees this, wears a hopeful smile 

To cover up his spattered soul, and while 

Digesting wounded truth, hiding his thought, 

His own opinions, for his soul is caught 

Amid the idiot hands that strike and press — 

One may glide through who learns to say yes, yes, 

While in heart-sickness whispering to himself : 

I do this for the children, and for pelf 

To keep the house and yard, the cupboard full. 

Some time I hope to free myself and pull 

My legs out of this social muck and mire. 

First money is, then freedom his desire, 

But often neither comes. If he win wealth 

He has become lead-poisoned, for by stealth 

The virus of the colors which he used 

To paint his life is spread and interfused 

[701 



THE TYPICAL AMERICAN? 

In every vein. By ways complaisant 
Our hero has got gold from ignorant 
Vulgarian nondescripts, has entertained 
The odorous cormorants, and has profaned 
His household gods to keep them safe and whole 
Upon the altar — winning what a goal ! 
For meantime in this living he has schooled 
His children in the precepts which have ruled 
His days from the beginning. They are bred 
His out-look to repeat, and even to tread 
The way he went amid the tangled wood 
In their own time and chosen neighborhood. 
What has our hero done } Why nothing more 
Than feed upon the beech leaves, gather store 
For children moths to feed on, and get strength 
To climb the branches and on leaves at length 
To feed of their own will. 

Is this a man ? 
Is this your typical American .•* 



[711 



COME, REPUBLIC 

Come ! United States of America, 

And you one hundred million souls, O Republic, 

Throw out your chests, lift up your heads, 

And walk with a soldier's stride. 

Quit burning up for money alone. 

Quit slouching and dawdling, 

And dreaming and moralising. 

Quit idling about the streets, like the boy 

In the village, who pines for the city. 

Root out the sinister secret societies, 

And the clans that stick together for office. 

And the good men who care nothing for liberty. 

But would run you, O Republic, as a household is run. 

It is time. Republic, to get some class. 

It is time to harden your muscles. 

And to clear your eyes in the cold water of Reality, 

And to tighten your nerves. 

It is time to think what Nature means. 

And to consult Nature, 

When your soul, as you call it, calls to you 

To follow principle 1 

It is time to snuff out the A. D. Bloods. 

[72] 



COME, REPUBLIC 

It is time to lift yourself, O Republic, 
From the street corners of Spoon River. 

Do you wish to survive, 

And to count in the years to come ? 

Then do what the plow-boys did in sixty-one. 

Who left the fields for the camp, 

And tightened their nerves and hardened their arms 

Till the day they left the camp for the fields 

The bravest, readiest, clearest-eyed 

Straight-walking men in the world, 

And symbolical of a Republic 

That is worthy the name ! 

If you, Republic, had kept the faith 
Of a culture all your own, 
And a spiritual independence. 
And a freedom large and new. 
If you had not set up a Federal judge in China, 
And scrambled for place in the Orient, 
And stolen the Philippine Islands, 
And mixed in the business of Europe, 
Three thousand miles of water east, 
And seven thousand west 
Had kept your hands untainted, free 
For a culture all your own ! 

But while you were fumbling, and while you were 
dreaming 

[73] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

As the boy in the village dreams of the city 

You were doing something worse : 

You were imitating ! 

You came to the city and aped the swells, 

And tried to enter their set ! 

You strained your Fate to their fate, 

And borrowed the mood to live their life ! 

And here you are in the game, Republic, 

But not prepared to play ! 

But you did it. 

And the water east and water west 

Are no longer your safeguard : 

They are now your danger and difficulty ! 

And you must live the life you started to imitate 

In spite of these perilous waters. 

For they keep you now from being neutral — 

For you are not neutral. Republic, 

You only pretend to be. 

You are not free, independent, brave, 

You are shackled, cowardly 

For what could happen to you overnight 

In the Orient, 

If you stood with your shoulders up, 

And were Neutral 1 

Suppose you do it. Republic. 
Get some class, 

[74] 



COME, REPUBLIC 

Throw out your chest, Hft up your head, 

Be a ruler in the world, 

And not a hermit in regimentals with a flint-lock. 

Colossus with one foot in Europe, 

And one in China, 

Quit looking between your legs for the re-appearance 

Of the star of Bethlehem — 

Stand up and be a man ! 



t7Sl 



PAST AND PRESENT 

Past midnight ! Vastly overhead 
A wash of stars — the town's asleep ! 
And through the pine trees of the dead 
The rising winds of morning creep. 

Dim, mid the hillside's shadow grass 
I count the marble slabs. How vain 
My throbbing life that waits to pass 
Into the great world on the train 1 

The city's vision fades from mind. 
I only see the hill and sky ; 
And on the mist that rides the wind 
A tottering pageant meets my eye. 

The cock crows faintly, far away ; 
A troop of age and grief appears. 
Ye shadows of a distant day. 
What do ye, pioneers .? 

There shines the engine's comet light. 
Ye shadows of a century set, 
Haste to the hillside and the night — 
I am not of you yet ! 

[76] 



ROBERT G. INGERSOLL 

To the lovers of Liberty everywhere, 

But chiefly to the youth of America 

Who did not know Robert G. Ingersoll, 

Remember that he helped to make you free ! 

He was a leader in a war of guns for freedom, 

But a general in the war of ideas for freedom ! 

He braved the misunderstanding of friends, 

He faced the enmity of the powerful small of soul, 

And the insidious power of the churches ; 

He put aside worldly honours. 

And the sovereignty of place. 

He stripped off the armor of institutional friendships 

To dedicate his soul 

To the terrible deities of Truth and Beauty ! 1 

And he went down into age and into the shadow 

With love of men for a staff. 

And the light of his soul for a light — 

And with these alone ! 

you martyrs trading martyrdom for heaven, 
And self-denial for eternal riches, 

How does your work and your death compare 
With a man's for whom the weal of the race, 
And the cause of humanity here and now were enough 
To give life meaning and death as well ? — 

1 have not seen such faith in Israel ! 

[77] 



AT HAVANA 

I met a fisherman at Havana once, 

Havana on the Illinois, I mean, 

There by the house and fish boats. He was burned 

The color of an acorn, and his hair 

Was coarse as a horse's tail. His scraggy hands 

Looked like thick bands of weather-colored copper, 

But his eyes were blue as faded gingham is. 

I stood amid the smell of scales and heads. 

And fishes' entrails dumped along the sand. 

The still air was a burning glass which focused 

A bon-fire sun right through my leghorn hat ; 

And a black fly from crannies of the air 

Lit on my hand and bit it venomously. 

Across the yellow river lay the bottoms 

Where giant sycamores and elms o'ertopped 

A jungle of disgusting weeds. The breeze 

Hot as a tropic breath exhaled the reek 

Of baking mud and of those noisome weeds. 

Wherewith the odors of putrescent fish 

Mixed on the simmering sands. A naturalist 

Must seek the habitat of the life he studies. . . . 

There on a platform lay the dressed fish, carp, 

Black-bass, and pike and pickerel, buffalo, 

[78] 



AT HAVANA 

Cat-fish, which I had come to see, and talk 

With fishermen along the Illinois. 

My man held up a fish and said to me ; 

" Here is the bastard who drives all the fish 

Out of the river, out of any water 

He comes in, and he comes wherever food 

Can be obtained ; the black-bass, even cat-fish, 

And all the good stocks run away from him, 

He is so hoggish, plaguy, and so mean. 

The other fish may try to live with him, 

I'm thinking sometimes, anyway I know 

He drives the others out." I looked to see 

What fish is so unfriendly to his fellows. 

"Just look at him," he said, but as he spoke 

The black fly stung my hand again. When I 

Looked up from swatting him, the man had thrown 

The fish upon the sand, and a stray dog 

Was running off with him along the river. 



['791 



THE MOURNER'S BENCH 

They're holding a revival at New Hope Meeting house, 
I can't keep from going, I ought to stay away. 
For I come home and toss in bed till day, 
For thinking of my sin, and the trouble I am in. 
I dream I hear the dancers 
In the steps and swings, 
The quadrilles and the lancers 
They danced at Revis Springs. 
I lie and think of Charley, Charley, Charley 
The Bobtown dandy 
Who had his way with me. 
And no one is so handy 
A dancer as Charley 
To Little Drops of Brandy, 
Or the Wind that Shakes the Barley, 
Or Good mornin' Uncle Johnny I've fetched your 
Wagon Home. 

And Greenberry Atterberry, who toed it like a pigeon 

Has gone and got religion ; 

He's deserted the dancers, the fiddlers, merry-makers, 

And I should do it too. 

For Charley, Charley has left me for to roam. 

[80] 



THE MOURNER'S BENCH 

But a woman at the mourner's bench must tell her story 

true — 
What shall I do ? What shall I do ? 

My grandmother told me of Old Peter Cartwright 

Who preached hell-fire 

And the worm that never dies. 

And here's a young preacher at the New Hope Meeting 
house, 

And every one allows, he has old Peter's brows, 

And flaming of the eyes, 

And the very same way, they say. 

Last night he stuck his finger right down in my direc- 
tion. 

And said : " God doesn't care 

For your woman's hair. 

Jesus wants to know if your soul is fair 

As your woman's complexion." 

And then I thought he knew — 

O what shall I do ? 

Greenberry Atterberry, weeping and unsteady 
Had left his seat already. 

He stood at the mourner's bench in great tribulation 
And told the congregation : 
That fiddling and dancing and tobacco chewin' 
Led up to whisky and to woman's ruin — 
And I thought he looked at me. 
G [8i] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Well, you can stop dancing, and you can stop drinking 
And you can leave the quarter-horses at the crooked 

races. 
But a woman, a woman, the people will be thinking 
Forever of a woman who confesses her behavior. 
And then I couldn't look In the people's faces, 
All weeping and singing, O gentle Saviour 1 
Then the devil said : You wench 
You'd cut a pretty figure at the mourner's bench, 
Go out and look for Charley, 
Go out and look for Charley, 
He's down at Leese's Grove. 
He has found a fresh love 
Go win him back again. 
He is dancing on the platform to the Speckled Hen. 

O Saviour, Saviour, how can I join the mourners. 

Face all the scorners ? 

But how can I hunt Charley at Leese's Grove ? 

How can I stand the staring, the whispering of things 

Down at Revis Springs .? 

How can I stand the mocking of the fiddle strings ? 

Charley ! Charley ! 

So it's knowing what's best to do, 

Saviour ! Saviour ! 

Its knowing what's best to do ! 



[82] 



THE BAY-WINDOW 

She sat at a bay-window where she saw 

First open carriages and buggies pass ! 

And then Victorias with horses docked 

And bits and buckles, chains of shining brass. 

And then the horseless carriage, till at last 

The swallow-gleam of varnished limousines 

Silent as shadows took her lifted eye, 

Uplifted from a book. She always sat 

In her bay-window with a book. 

And with a tinted fan in summer-time. 

But first she was a bride 

Before the war. 

Springing from honest blood, her place 

Passed over lightly as her grandeur grew : 

She was of seed too vital to decay 

Wholly in any soil, the sort that grows and blooms 

Where never gardener comes. 

And this bay-window ! An aging man of gold 

Had plucked her up, and here she rests and breathes 

The free air of Chicago's reclamation. 

And then she is ' 

A wonder-bride for her brown hair, 

[83] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And gray-blue eyes, and laughter, sunny wit, 
And naturally patrician ways and speech, 
(Acquiring French now that the chance has come), 
And she is eighteen and is born to rule. 

And her great merchant husband with blue eyes, 

And strong beaked English nose, 

Walks straighter for a pride that she is his. 

Gives her a country place spaced out in walks, 

And flower beds, where now such flimsy flats 

Confront Grand Boulevard ! 

And for a city house he builds a house 

Three stories high at Twentieth street. 

Where then the manifest was sand and oaks, 

And what is now the Loop, was just as far 

As Hyde Park from the Loop is now. 

In this bay-window then she sits a bride, 

And sees the scrub oak cut and mansions fill 

Gradually year by year the waste of sand. 

For fashion follows her and builds beside her, 

Till Prairie Avenue becomes the street 

Of millionaires, who hear from traveled wives 

What London is, what Paris is, 

And open purses to unfolding tastes 

For canvases and sculpture. 

For every one grows rich now in Chicago. 

And in the seventies women go to Paris, 

[84] 



THE BAY-WINDOW 

Herself among the first, at least the chief, 

See Egypt and see Rome. 

And when returned drive down where wondering eyes 

Along the marble terrace promenading, 

Where Michigan Avenue was bounded by 

The Lake across the street. 

Behold the striped silk of their parasols 

Fluttering over plumes and dancing eyes, 

And purple velvet of Victorias. 

For now it is the classic age ! 
There is the driving park, 
There is the Palmer House, 
There are cathedrals too. 
There are the lofty ceilings walnut trimmed, 
And foliate chandeliers of polished brass, 
And marble-slabbed bufi'ets with heavy cupids. 
And clustered fruits carved in their sombre wood. 
And square pianos with their rosewood legs 
Swelled out with oval figures like great plums. 
And paintings deeply daubed in brown asphaltum 
Where chiaroscuro ends were lost in shadows. 
Not lost in light, depressionistic things. 
From which her lambent intuition led her. 
She was among the first to catch the psychic 
Waves that sweep around this little world 
And change all things. 

She traveled much and lived in Europe much, 

[8s] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Returning to her window where she watched 
The city pass and bow its admiration, 
The half of whom she knew as time went on, 
Though all knew her and said "there is the queen,'* 
Or "there she is who thinks she is the queen." 

And when the opera came she was the queen. 

At least a queen whose sovereignty withstood 

Encroaching claims to ripen into rights. 

But then if all were lost where not a million 

People lived as yet, and where, oh well 

Packers and others threw their heavier gold 

In what was once a scale of primogeniture, 

Rome stood and London stood and Paris. 

Have your own way at home, the mood began, 

I am off here where you can scarcely come. 

The next place is the best, a far off place 

Has teasing witcheries to those at home. 

Her husband now was dead some years, the children 

Grown up, or off to school, a daughter married 

To an Italian count kept state in Florence 

Where Browning came, with whom our queen would 

fence 
In spiritual dialectics. In her travels 
She had known Ibsen, Patti and George Eliot, 
Sat as a dinner guest by Beaconsfield, 
And taken tea upon Hawarden's lawn. 
And so in escritoires and cabinets 

[861 



THE BAY-WINDOW 

She kept mementoes of her days abroad : 

Like letters from George Eliot, 

"Ferishtah's Fancies" inscribed by Robert. 

And in the course of time this three-floored house 

Was filled with treasures, tapestries, 

Etruscan things, and faience peacock blue^ 

And oriental jade with letters of gold. 

And there she reigned, but lived alone 

The house kept by French maids 

And impeccable butlers. 

And so the years went, and she saw at last 

The city start to slip away from her 

And make her royal isolation 

An ignorant solitude 1 

Yet she was beautiful at forty years, 

Some years a widow then and very rich. 

She was most fresh and matronly at fifty. 

At fifty-five and sixty she could charm 

A man of any age. And master-men 

Paid suit to her and gained 

The stimulating richness of her mind. 

Some said they did not want her, others said 

Her wisdom and self-mastery froze their hearts. 

But when she spoke she said she could not change 

The name she loved, or change her place in life 

To forced forgetfulness of that English face, 

Who lifted up her life from some obscurity 

[87] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And made it flower. 

At any rate she lived for forty years 

With only maids and butlers in a house 

Round which the warring city crept, 

Until at last the street with lowered pulse 

Saw vacant mansions, as the mob psychology, 

Which sways in fashion, brought an exodus. 

But she knew no temptation to depart. 

This was her house, her center of the world. 

And when the Countess left the Count she came 

To ease her mother's loneliness — oh yes ! 

Six months of loneliness was quite enough. 

And then in spite of everything she left. 

Returned to Florence and her rascal count, 

Because she could not stand the loneliness, 

And saw ahead long years of loneliness 

In some bay window — no, it could not be ! 

And so she left her mother sitting there 

Now sixty-eight or so, 

Who watched the city pass, 

All now the swallow-gleam of limousines, 

And all around her now the boarding house. 

Or institutes for drunkards, hideous blocks 

Of offices and warehouses. 

And all her neighbors lying up in Rose Hill. 
Perhaps a few remaining who remembered 
All that she was, could only say to those 
[88] 



THE BAY-WINDOW 

Who had heard of her as she was In the eighties, 
And in the nineties : 

"She was a great woman, I can scarce explain. 
It was this way : Chicago then was young. 
Chicago in ten years is changed all through. 
You see it was this way : But then you see 
This great two million thing has slipped away 
From all our hands." 

And then perhaps 

A limousine would pass with reckless pridelings 

Coming from tea or dancing at the Blackstone, 

And find their laughter shortened by her face 

At this bay-window 

Would say : "Who's that old woman at the window? 

She always has a book, or has a fan." 



[89] 



MAN OF OUR STREET 

This Man's life had four stages as I hear. 

The first stage took him through the days of school 

And fastened on his name a prophecy 

That he would win success. The second stage 

Took him to thirty years while he was fumbling 

The strings to find the key and play in key. 

The third stage marked discouragement, departure 

To speculations and to reconcilement 

That he was born no lawyer. And the fourth 

Was one of quietude and trivial days. 

I knew him in this fourth stage as a man 

Emerging from a house across the street 

On Sunday mornings in silk hat, long coat 

And bamboo cane. When summer came he donned 

A flannel suit of gray, a panama 

And gloves of tan. When winter came he wore 

A double-breasted coat with lamb's fur collar. 

He had no friends, so far as one could see, 

No membership in clubs, was never seen 

Where men meet, or society is gathered. 

Sometimes he stopped to tell a passer-by 

The day is fine, it's very fine, you're right, 

In voice complaisant. The neighbors knew 

[90] 



MAN OF OUR STREET 

He lived upon a little purse he made 
In compromise of some preposterous wrong. 
And people wondered how the purse was lasting, 
And wondered how much longer he could loaf, 
How many seasons more he could appear 
So seasonably attired and walk the streets 
In such velleity, with such vacuous light 
Grown steady in his eyes. 

I love to watch 
The chickens in a barn-yard. Nothing else 
Is quite so near the human brood. You'll see 
Invariably a rooster stalk about 
In aimless fashion, moving here and there, 
Picking at times with dull inappetence 
At grains or grit, or standing for a time 
In listless revery. I never saw 
A man with such resemblance to this rooster 
As this man was. 

At last we had not seen 
Our man upon the street for several days. 
And some one said he had been very ill. 
His wife had fears and wept and said 'twas hard 
Just on the eve of great success to die. 
He had thought out a plan, she said, to win 
Great trade in South America for us. 
Our State Department thought it excellent. 

[91] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And then one day four doctors passed his door 
For consultation, and the word went round 
Our man rebelled most piteously and said 
He could not die until he had worked out 
His dream of South America. He knew 
His danger, had the doctors called to check 
The inroads of the peril, though the purse 
Was growing slim, as we discovered later. 

One noon-time as I came along the street 
Where twenty children laughed and followed me, 
Half playing at their game, half following 
My banterings and idle talk, and asking 
About the bundle underneath my arm. 
"It's nothing but a chicken, go away," 
I said to them. 

And there across the street 
Was crape upon the door — our man was dead, 
And I was carrying chicken home to boil. 



[92] 



ACHILLES DEATHERIDGE 

"Your name is Achilles Deatheridge ? 
How old are you, my boy ?" 
"Fm sixteen past and I went to the war 
From Athens, Illinois." 

"Achilles Deatheridge, you have done 
A deed of dreadful note." 
"It comes of his wearing a battered hat, 
And a rusty, wrinkled coat." 

"Why didn't you know how plain he is ? 
And didn't you ever hear. 
He goes through the lines by day or night 
Like a sooty cannoneer?" 

"You must have been half dead for sleep, 
For the dawn was growing bright." 
"Well, Captain, I had stood right there 
Since six o'clock last night." 

"I cocked my gun at the swish of the grass 
And how am I at fault 
When a dangerous looking man won't stop 
When a sentry hollers halt?" 

[93] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

"I cried out halt and he only smiled 
And waved his hand like that. 
Why, any Johnnie could wear the coat 
And any fellow the hat." 

"I hollered halt again and he stopped 
And lighted a fresh cigar. 
I never noticed his shoulder badge, 
And I never noticed a star." 

"So you arrested him .? Well, Achilles, 
When you hear the swish of the grass 
If It's General Grant inspecting the lines 
Hereafter let him pass." 



[94] 



SLIP SHOE LOVEY 

You're the cook's understudy 
A gentle idiot body. 
You are slender like a broom 
Weaving up and down the room, 
With your dirt hair in a twist 
And your left eye in a mist. 
Never thinkin', never hopin' 
With your wet mouth open. 
So bewildered and so busy 
As you scrape the dirty kettles, 
O Slip Shoe Lizzie 
As you rattle with the pans. 
There's a clatter of old metals, 
O Slip Shoe Lovey, 
As you clean the milk cans. 
You're a greasy little dovey, 
A laughing scullery daughter, 
As you slop the dish water, 
So abstracted and so dizzy, 
O Slip Shoe Lizzie ! 

So mussy, little hussie. 

With the china that you break, 

[95] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And the kitchen In a smear 
When the bread Is yet to bake, 
And the market things are here — 
O Slip Shoe Lovey ! 

You are hurrying and scurrying 
From the sink to the oven, 
So forgetful and so sloven. 
You are bustling and hustling 
From the pantry to the door. 
With your shoe strings on the floor. 
And your apron strings a-draggin'. 
And your spattered skirt a-saggin'. 

You're an angel Idiot lovey, 
One forgives you all this clatter 
Washing dishes, beating batter. 
But there Is another matter 
As you dream above the sink : 
You're in love pitter-patter. 
With the butcher-boy I think. 
And he'll get you, he has got you 
If he hasn't got you yet. 

For he means to make you his, 
O Slip Shoe Liz. 
And your open mouth is. wet 
To a little boyish chatter. 

[96] 



SLIP SHOE LOVEY 

You're an easy thing to flatter 
With your hank of hair a-twist, 
And your left eye in a mist — 
Slip Shoe Lovey ! 

So hurried and so flurried 
And just a little worried 
You lean about the room, 
Like a mop, like a broom. 
O Slip Shoe Lovey ! 
O Slip Shoe Lovey ! 



97] 



THE ARCHANGELS 

Flopped on the floor 

With such a silken richness of dark hair, 

Descending breezily like blown water from her brow, 

And from the arched crown of her Raphael head, 

Between the years of twenty-five and thirty, 

Her face glows and is white, 

Like the thin spirit of a candle light. 

And over her forehead passes 

Swift waves of splendor, which must be her thought. 

Looking, it seems, as if a snowy curtain 

Were rhythmically blown at dawn in a white room ! 

In each of her eyes there Is a blue-bright spark ! 

One time I saw two stars 

Held in an inch of water when the evening 

Was pale from dying day. 

And under this thin water lay dead leaves 

The drift of late October — 

Gray leaves beneath clear water by an edge 

Where spring's first flower, the azure pickerel weed, 

Bent over contemplated those two stars : 

These were the sparks in her unruffled eyes. 

[98] 



THE ARCHANGELS 

Flopped on the floor 

With Httle hands clasped round her girlish knees 

Such musical thought sings through her cherub lips — 

Raptures for Beauty, 

Raptures for Truth, 

Raptures for Freedom and a world that is free. 

While around her flames the fire of a durable hope. 

Till at last I sit in wonder 

At the miracle of such spirit. 

And the miracle of the youths about her, 

Listening with bright eyes, in the fellowship of delight, 

Who prompt, suggest, applaud, are passionate 

For the right word, the soaring thought to beat 

At heaven's gate in a last burst of song. 

And here am I a part of this psychic circle. 

Bound with soft loops of gold in a charmed band 

Of a brood of youthful archangels fiery and strong. . . . 

Then thrilled with love of a land that can grow such 

souls 
I turn and ask them questions : 

How old are you, who were your father and mother ^ 
What chance have you had in life ? 
What books have you read ? 
And where have you bred these dreams ? 
But why do you laugh } for there must be soil or blood 
Or both, for there must be the souls of free men 
And the loins of free men, 

[991 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

To make archangels you know, 

And pour them into the city to think and plan 

For a greater Republic to come. 

And though it matters nothing that villages 

In Iowa, Indiana, Illinois 

In the great far west, in New England, gave us you, 

Or you, or you, or you — 

I somehow thrill at the contrast, or thrill with the 

thought 
Of such great richness and vastness in the land, 
Flowering such souls all fresh and keen. 
And eager to make the Republic wholly free — 
May she deserve your love ! 



[ loo] 



SONG OF CHANGE 

Deep thought that comes through stainless skies 
Pure moods that arch the fancy's birth ; 
Sweet sorrow, clear in youthful eyes ; 
Soft laughter, speaking maiden mirth ; — 
Such gifts were thine, ere time o'ercast 
The sunshine of thy tender heart; 
And now that joy itself is past 
Yet patience still will do its part. 

Sad stars from which the sun has drawn 
The light of life, no longer bright ; 
Life of our lives, that with the dawn 
Passed, though remembered, from our sight ! 
From noonday stept the chilling shade 
That struck the quivering aspens still ; 
Thou hopeful one, thou unafraid. 
Smiled — but the Shadow had his will. 

Souls of our youth which tire and sleep 
And wake to find the hour is sped ! 
Thou scorn which mocks us if we weep ! 
Thou hope which says "Be comforted !" 
Thou vision dulled, whose tutored eye 
Sees but in vain the poplar tree 
As once upblown against the sky. 
When we were fain, when we were free. 

[lOl] 



MEMORABILIA 

Old pioneers, how fare your souls to-day ? 

They seem to be 

Imminent about this pastoral way, 

This sunny lea. 

The elms and oaks you knew, greenly renew 

Their leaves each spring. 

But never comes the hour again which drew 

Your world from view. 

Here in a mood I lay, deep in the grass, 

Between the graves ; 

And saw ye rise, ye shadowy forms, and pass 

O'er the wind's waves ; 

Sunk eyes and bended head, wherefrom is fled 

The light of life ; 

Even as the land, whose early youth is dead, 

Whose glory fled. 

With eighty years gone over what remains 

For tongue to tell ? 

Hence was it that in silence, with no pains 

At last 'twas well. 

Under these trees to creep, for ultimate sleep 

To soothe regret, 

[102] 



MEMORABILIA 

For the world's ways, for war, let mankind reap, 
You said, and weep. 

Abram Rutledge died, ere the great war 

Ruined the land. 

His well-loved son was struck on fields afar 

By a brother's hand. 

Then brought they him, O pioneer, on his bier 

To the hill and the tree, 

Back home and laid him, son of Trenton, here 

Your own grave near. 

Of all unuttered griefs, of vaguest woes. 

None equals this : 

Forgotten hands, and work that no one knows 

Whose work it is ; 

Good gifts bequeathed, but never earned, or spurned 

In hate or pride; 

And the boon of an age destroyed, ere a cycle turned 

O'er you inurned. 

Abram Rutledge lies In a sunken grave, 

Dust and no more. 

Let Freedom fail, it is naught to him, who was brave. 

Who stood to the fore. 

The oaks and elms he knew, greenly renew 

Their leaves each spring, 

But gone his dream with that last hour which drew 

His world from view. 

[103] 



TO A SPIROCHAETA 

If through the microscope 

We peer and stare 
You look like marceled shreds of rope, 

Or maiden hair, 
With eyeless hunger swift to grope 

Out of your lair. 

To feed and to fulfill your fate 

You dive and swim 
Forward and backward flagellate 

Amid the dim 
Ichor of women where you mate, 

Delicate, slim. 

Why are you screw-shaped, in a spiral .? 

And why your form 
Like a crooked hand upon a dial ? 

You are the norm 
For all hell sealed up in a vial 

To break in storm. 

Your whips are sharper far than sickles, 
Or cricket bristle; 

[ 104] 



TO A SPIROCHAETA 

With finer points than rose-leaf prickles, 

Or drifting thistle ; 
You feed yourself till the blood trickles 

Through flesh and gristle. 

When a man knows he is your diet 

A solemn thrill 
Shows in great eyes and spirit quiet 

For fears that kill ; 
He is a maelstrom running riot, 

At the center still. 

Well, Robert Burns : You saw a louse 

On a lady crawHng. 
But one can keep to his own house 

Without forestalling 
This demon on his death carouse 

Breeding and sprawling. 

But, Robert Burns, this does not tent 

Our pride or tease us ; 
It is not heaven's message sent 

That virtue frees us. 
It shows us hard or penitent 

As Nature sees us ! 



[los] 



CATO BRADEN 

I went to Winston Prairie to attend 
The funeral of Cato Braden. He 
Had died at fifty-one and I had known him 
Since he was twenty-four, but for fifteen 
Years or more I had not seen him, nor 
Exchanged with him more than a telegraphic 
Note about some trivial thing. Indeed 
I had not been in Winston Prairie during 
These fifteen years. 

But on the train I thought 
Of Cato Braden, brought back all the days 
Through which I knew him, from the very first 
When he returned to Winston Prairie from 
De Pauw, or was it Valparaiso I Yet 
'Twas called a university I remember. 
And when I knew him first he kept at hand 
De Senectute, also Anthon's Homer, 
And lexicons in Latin and in Greek, 
Both unabridged. Sometimes he let me read 
The orations he had won the prizes with. 
And sometimes he would tell me what it meant 
To study at a university. 
And what they did and what the boys were like. 

[io6] 



CATO BRADEN 

This Cato Braden was a happy soul 

At twenty-four, of a full noble brow, 

A gentle smiling mouth, an honest eye, 

A tall and handsome figure, altogether 

A man conspicuous for form, a bearing 

Of grace and courtliness, engaging ways ; 

He might be called most lovable, he had 

The gift of friendship, was not envious, 

Could scarcely be enraged, was not offended 

By little things and often not by great. 

He had in short a nature fit to work 

With great capacity ; had he combined 

An intellect but half his nature's worth 

He might have won the race. But many thought 

He promised much, his father most of all 

Because he had these virtues, and in truth 

Before his leaves unfolded with the spring 

His mind seemed apt, perhaps seemed measured full 

Of quality, the prizes he had won 

At Valparaiso pointed to the fruit 

He would produce at last. 

So on the train 
I thought of Cato Braden. Then I thought 
Of when he came from school with his degree, 
And for that summer when he walked the square, 
Was whispered of as "Cato Braden, look." 
The first thing Winston Prairie knew it saw 
[107] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

His name conjoined with that of Jerry Ott's — 

It was Ott and Braden, editors and owners, 

The Winston Prairie Eagle. Jerry Ott 

Was sixty-nine and wheezy from the fight 

For Jefferson Democracy, free trade. 

Besides the capital that Cato Braden 

Brought through his father to the enterprise 

Meant bitter war on enemies of truth. 

And Cato Braden's father had some wealth 

Made from the making of a vermifuge 

And a preposterous compound which he called 

Pesodorne ; and I have always thought 

That Cato Braden's father garrisoned 

His factory for making patent nostrums 

By buying for his son this Interest, 

And place of power in journalism ; for 

The father's strong devotion to the church 

Did not protect him 'gainst the casual sneers 

Of Winston Prairie's paper called the Lance, 

Which used to print such things as this, to Instance 

"There's Braden's Vermifuge, well, Doctor Braden, 

Try your own vermifuge, let's see it work." 

Well, anyway I know that Cato Braden 
Intended to pursue a legal course, 
And practice the profession in a city. 
I know his father bought for him this place 
With Jerry Ott as editor of the Eagle. 
[108I 



CATO BRADEN 

I know he went to work. I know he changed 

The paper's motto from *'Hew to the line," 

To Principia non homines. I know 

He used to sing "Over the Garden Wall/* 

While writing editorials and smoked 

A number of cheroots. I know he had 

A locked drawer where he kept a secret bottle 

From which he'd take a drink at noon or night. 

I know he was on terms of friendship with 

The milliner and dressmaker in a month 

After he came from Valparaiso. Yes, 

I know he advocated a gymnasium, 

And dancing hall for Winston Prairie, and 

He opened up a fight to get a park 

Where concerts might be given. Cato Braden 

Had these ideas at least. About this park 

A word remains to say. 

Fernando Winston, 
Who founded Winston Prairie and surveyed 
The original town, laid out a square along 
The river for a pleasure ground ; in time. 
Some fifty years or more. It was forgotten. 
And when this Cato Braden came to town 
And started as a journalist 'twas used 
In part by Winston Prairie's creamery ; 
In part 'twas used for gardening by the pastor 
Of Winston Prairie's strongest church. But Cato 
[ 109] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Had searched the records, found them straight, began 

To agitate the park. And it was this, 

Together with Principia non homines, 

Free trade, the dressmaker and milliner, 

Perhaps the bottle in the drawer, whose secret 

Leaked out at once, that clove the people of 

The town into two groups of friends and foes. 

He had but just begun his editorship 

When I left Winston Prairie ; after that 

Knew little of it, saw him but at times, 

Long separated, saw him not at all 

For fifteen years before his death, and now 

Because I was his friend was on the train 

His funeral to attend. 

I drove to Oakland 
With Dr. Green and William Smoot the grocer. 
'Twas hot without a breeze, the town was still. 
The church bell tolled until we reached the grave, 
It was the church whose pastor used the square 
For gardening. And on the way I asked 
Why Cato Braden died at fifty-one. 
"Why, whisky," answered William Smoot, the grocer, 
"And women," for he had bad luck they say. 
"How is that, Doc, you know.?" 

And Dr. Green 
After a silence said : "It isn't true. 
[no] 



CATO BRADEN 

"He was as sound, so far as that's concerned 
"As any of us/' 

Then I asked again 
Why Cato Braden died at fifty-one. 
And Dr. Green said laughing, "Well, you know 
"They die at thirty-one and forty-one, 
"And sixty-one of what killed Cato Braden, 
"That's Bright's Disease." 

"And whisky brings that on — 
I ventured to assert. 

"Sometimes" replied 
The man of medicine, "But other things 
"Produce it. There's a man's diathesis; 
"There's worry, over- work, sometimes disease 
"Suffered in childhood, leaving an effect 
"Like soil, all fertilized for such seed as this. 
"He should have drunk no whisky, yet he drank 
"Not half so much as Winston Prairie thought. 
"But you can see if whisky caused this thing 
"All whisky drinkers would be sure to have it, 
"Or die of it if not killed by a train." 

We left the carnage, having reached the place 
Where Cato Braden's grave was dug, and stood 
Together in a company of fifty 
And heard the pastor pray for heaven's lessons 

[III] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

From Cato Braden's life. And after that 
We separated, made the horses trot 
To reach our different destinations. I 
Looked up Will Boyden for a little talk 
Before my train left for the city. 

Will 
Was in his office with his sleeves rolled up, 
Cob-pipe in mouth, typing a legal paper, 
A narratio in slander, so he said. 
He smiled from ear to ear and dropped his work. 
"You're here for Cato's funeral," he said, 
And added, "It's a shame he had to die. 
Damned if it isn't." 

Then I asked again 
Why Cato Braden died at fifty-one. 
And Will said: "Winston Prairie, Illinois, 
Killed Cato Braden." 

Tell me what you mean V* 
Then Will refreshed his pipe and talked to me : 
"I'm fifty-two and good for twenty years 
I have no stronger frame than Cato Braden, 
But then I got a formula for life 
As time went on, and it was one that suited 
My nature, and I thrived as you can see. 
I have the power to draw the nutriment 
Out of this soil, and I get strength thereby 

[112] 



CATO BRADEN 

Wherewith to overcome the things that kill. 
I work, but then I play, I hunt and fish, 
I read and sometimes take a little trip. 
I don't drink whisky, not because I fear it, 
But I hate putting in myself such fire — 
Beer and light wines are pleasant, more like food 
Than stimulants. Well, Cato Braden started 
When *Over the Garden Wall' was all the rage, 
'All Coons Look Alike to Me' was my 
Key-note for starting. You know what I mean : 
Between my day and his there's just the difference 
That lies between waltz time and syncopation ; 
Between the magic lantern and the movie, 
The rattan phaeton and Ford machine. 
These new things came along before he died. 
But he had made his life for the old things. 
Could not adjust himself, De Senectute 
And Valparaiso had not taught him how 
To reach out in the world from Winston Prairie 
And get the new things for his life. But if 
They taught him how he lost the secret here. 
For after all a place like Winston Prairie 
Will kill your spirit just as surely as 
The Island where they cooped up great Napoleon. 
In the first place what is a man to do 
With life in any place ? That is the problem. 
And what could Cato Braden do with life 
In Winston Prairie } First he was as fitted 
I [113] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

To be a journalist as I, and if 
Endowed to be a journalist, just think 
Of editing The Eagle. But you see 
His father was at war then with the Lance 
Over that vermifuge and pesodorne. 
And under guise of starting him in life 
Bought Cato in the paper for the selfish 
Purpose of defending vermifuge. 
And Cato did it too, and put away 
From year to year his dream of studying 
The law and practicing in a city. 
During which time the poisons of this town 
Crept in his blood and stupefied and killed him. 
He married Mary Comfort, as you know. 
And Mary is — well, what I call a brood-mare, 
Although they had no children. What I mean 
She is a well-fleshed woman, sound of nerve, 
A help-eat, but she made a loyal wife 
Who had two eyes to see what Cato saw, 
And never an eye to help him see the things 
That lay around him, which he stumbled over. 
And marriage to my mind means this to man : 
He drains his body out to be a father, 
And drains his spirit out to be a husband, 
Unless the woman helps him see or feel 
More than he sees or feels for self. Well then 
The years went on. And every day at eight 
He could be seen toward his office bent. 

[114] 



CATO BRADEN 

At half past ten just as the morning train 
Was whistling for the crossing he would go 
To get the mail. Returning he would walk 
Along Main Street, slapping the folded News 
Against his leg. He scanned it in his office. 
At twelve o'clock he went to dinner, then 
As whisky made him eat, he over-ate 
And took a nap till two o'clock. At three 
One might discover him at solitaire — 
He had clipped from the morning paper quite enough 
To keep the boys in copy. Then at four 
He might be sitting at the livery stable, 
Or sometimes might be found in that back room 
Of Little's restaurant, where a keg of beer 
Shipped in was being tapped. At night perhaps 
He might be seen down there on Locust street, 
Waiting to enter where the milliner lived. 
So passed his life away from twenty-four 
To fifty-one. It's simple enough to ask 
Why not write for the Eagle, make it better, 
Give ideas to the people, help the town. 
Refresh the mind, read, study history, 
De Senectute } Fancy Teddy Roosevelt, 
Who's labored for this land with restless gifts, 
Tied down In Winston Prairie — well, you can't. 
He'd break the ties, and that's the point, you see. 
For Cato couldn't break them, had to stay, 
Incapable to extract the good that's here, 

[IIS] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Susceptible to all the bad that's here; 
He was a nose half active 
Who enters In a room where gas escapes, 
Sits in the room unconscious of the gas 
Till he grows sluggish, lies him down to rest 
And dies unknowing. So I say It's true 
That Winston Prairie ruined Cato Braden 
And killed him in the end. 

You must go see, 
Before you leave, our park called Willard Park, 
Named after Emma Willard, that devout 
Old woman, dead these fifteen years or so. 
She left enough to build a granite coping, 
Set out some trees, and buy park seats, a stone 
Whereon to carve the words, 'The gracious gift 
Of Emma Willard.' Well, this Cato Braden 
First talked this park, was first to tell the truth 
About this plot of ground. And more than that 
When Cato Braden came here he had dreams : 
He wrote at first that boxing, wrestling, racing 
Would help this town ; that games were needed here ; 
That Americans seemed ignorant of the art 
Of being gay, feeling light-hearted, wise 
To play ; that they were wise to work and pray, 
Fear happiness. And Cato Braden said 
The little town was cursed by just these things, 
And many human souls destroyed by them. 

[ii6] 



CATO BRADEN 

These were not thoughts of his, he found them somewhere, 

But knew them when he found them, that's his credit. 

What though he was a drunk man whom you ask 

What road to take, who points and gurgles guttural 

Sounds inarticulate ? Or better still 

What though he was a sick man who in vain 

Attempts to make his household orders clear? 

For it was true that Cato Braden spoke 

About these things at first, then gave them up. 

For no one seemed responsive to his plans. 

And some there were who sneered, and others said 

He'd better help the church, and leave alone 

The questions which make bitterness and strife, 

Which was their way of speaking of the square 

Which Cato tried to make into a park. 

They say a lung will turn to stone or steel 

When men work in the filings and the dust. 

At last the dust of Winston Prairie turned 

His soul to dust. 

You see old Jerry Ott 
Had left a son his interest in the Eagle, 
And Cato Braden died right at his table 
While playing solitaire. This son came in 
And found him dead, a card clutched in his hand. 
The card was, strange enough, the deuce of clubs ! 
This son was glad that Cato Braden died 
For now he runs the Eagle by himself. 

[117] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

This Cato Braden had three strains of thought. 

I never met him lately but he talked 

Some one of them, at times all three of them. 

One was the American town must be improved, 

So better to conserve the souls and bodies 

Of boys and girls. And even when the movie, 

And other things of this day came along 

He still maintained they did not meet the case. 

He never said what thing was requisite. 

But in a general way I think he meant 

A stronger, and more truthful and more natural 

Outlook and attitude would save a town 

From dust, and mold and death. For once he said 

" This winter I shall read Grote's History." 

He never read it. But I think he meant 

He would find out the secret of the Greeks. 

And then he'd say the young, the middle aged 

The old made separate spheres of feeling, thought; 

And that a town should not be ruled by one. 

Should not be governed as all folks were old, 

Or young, or middle aged, but each should have 

The town for his according to his age. 

And thought and vital power, within his sphere 

And period of life ; these separate spheres 

Should move untroubled by the others, move 

Free, independent of the other spheres. 

I talked with Cato Braden for the last 
[ii8] 



CATO BRADEN 

A week ago last night. He said to me : 
I wake these mornings lately with the thought 
Another chance will come to me, that death 
Will bring another chance. And then he said : 
This is the way of it. When you are young 
You say in five years I shall take a trip, 
See New York City, go abroad perhaps. 
When five years pass you do not take the trip. 
Then you say in a year I'll take the trip. 
And so it goes, while you say in a year, 
Next year, next year, until at last you say 
No, never now ! Well, now you'd think a man 
Would weep when he stands up against the wall, 
And knows he cannot climb the wall. But no, 
Something still whispers you will do it yet. 
And then you know it must be after death. 
In life again, the chance will come to you. 
For you know well it is not in this life. 
Then Cato Braden said : Not in this life 
Shall I read Grote, I could not understand it 
After these years in Winston Prairie — still 
I have a feeling I shall know about it 
Somewhere, somehow. 

You'd better catch your train. 
It's good to see you. Up there in the city 
Think sometimes of the American village and 
What may be done for conservation of 
The souls of men and women in the village." 

[119] 



WINSTON PRAIRIE 

"What made you buy those lots in Winston Prairie ? 
If you had come to me I could have told you 
About the circuit judge, the state's attorney, 
The county judge, the county clerk, the treasurer, 
The assessors and collectors who belong 
To what we call a court-house ring. You know 
They run the county, re-elect themselves, 
Play with the local bosses, stand in league 
With sellers of cement, and brick and lumber, 
And with the papers given the public printing, 
And with the sharks who buy in property 
For taxes sold, and with the intriguing thieves 
Who make improvements, levy the assessments 
For side-walk, sewers." 

So my friend to me. 
"Good land," I answered, "I inherited them, 
I did not buy these lots. But apropos 
Of what you say, I've wondered what's the matter. 
I write and write for statements of my taxes. 
And cannot get them. Then I take the train. 
And travel through the heat to Winston Prairie. 
And I stand before a window asking for them. 

[ 120] 



WINSTON PRAIRIE 

Your property was sold, I am informed. 
So I redeem, and go out to the grave-yard 
To look at Cato Braden's grave, and then 
Catch the next train for home. A week or so 
Elapses and I get a letter — hum ! 
Winston Prairie — office of the controller ; 
Your property was sold for special numbered 
Two thousand and eighty-six, when you reply 
Please mention sale 1019. — Damn these thieves ! 
So I pay that. I see ! your court-house ring, — 
The men who're sworn to enforce the law are those 
Who break it, and who use it to despoil you — 
Well, let me tell you. 

In this very June 
I went to Winston Prairie on this errand, 
And after I had written several times 
To get a statement. I arrived at noon — 
And yet the court-house offices were closed, 
The treasurer's, the clerk's, controller's, all. 
I met a janitor who said : All closed 
Till half past one. That meant I'd miss my train 
Back to Chicago, and would have to stay 
In Winston Prairie until six o'clock. 
I sat down In the hall-way with a curse. 
But in a minute there were hideous yells, 
Shrieks, curses, as it were of women beaten. 
Tortured, or strangled. So I went to see, 

[121] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And found a door behind which I could hear 
Intolerable tears, the scratching of weak hands 
Against the door and wall. What Is the matter ? 
I hallooed through the door. 0, go to hell 
A woman said, you know what Is the matter. 
I don't, I said, I'll help you If I can. 
Then followed sobs and wails, and Incoherent 
Blubbering of words. At last I saw a finger 
Stuck through the broken plaster by the door, 
And leaning down I said : look through at me. 
And then I stooped and looking through the crack 
Saw a gray eye, which looked as It might be 
Of Slavic birth. But who can read an eye 
Shown singly through a crack } So while I talked 
To get the story of these girls in prison, 
(For where they were was called the calaboose. 
Built in the court-house) some one back of me 
Said : They'll be quiet in due time, the cooler 
Cools people off. I turned and saw a man 
Who seemed to be a judge, and was a judge, 
As I discovered later. Well, I said, 
I cannot bear to see a human being 
In such distress and terror — what's their ages ? 
One's sixteen and one's seventeen, said the judge, 
But they are bad ones, so I made the fine 
Enough to hold them thirty days. I asked 
What did they do ^ They were soliciting, 
The judge replied, and here In Winston Prairie 

[ 122] 



WINSTON PRAIRIE 

The law Is law and we enforce the law. 

We do not do as you do in Chicago. 

I felt my heart shut tight its valves and stop, 

And was about to say : You are a fool. 

You are what some would have America, 

You are an Illinoisan, damn your soul. 

You are a figure in the court-house ring, 

Whereof the tax shark is a figure too. 

But then I thought these girls might prove to be 

Worth while some time. But even if they live 

Street walkers all their lives, they stone no prophets, 

Devour no widows' houses, do less harm 

Than court-house rings and judges in the rings. 

So this is what I said : May I enquire 

What are your Honor's hours for holding court ? 

And he replied : Court has adjourned till two. 

I hold till six o'clock, we do not loaf 

As judges in Chicago do, good-day 1 

Well, then at half past one I paid my taxes, 
With interest, penalties and all the costs. 
At two o'clock I stood before the bar 
And to the judge addressed these words : Your Honor, 
I represent Miss Christine Leichentritt, 
Miss Garda Gerstenburg, who are in jail 
Under your Honor's sentence. I have seen 
The state's attorney, who is satisfied 
To let them go, if all the costs are paid. 

[ 123 ] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

I went to see him on a matter of taxes, 

And this came up. The state's attorney rose 

And said : Your Honor, they are very young. 

And though they have been caught before at this, 

And warned that Winston Prairie is no place 

For them to ply their trade, I am inclined 

To think they will not break our laws again. 

I thought I saw his honor's eye light up 
As if it caught a wireless, so he said : 
*'The court is satisfied." I paid the costs 
And took Christine and Garda to Chicago. 
But at the station, as I said good bye, 
Christine flared up : Y'ou don't suppose that I 
Will let you pay those costs, I am not cheap. 
I may be bad, but I am square, she said. 
And I have money in my room, come on 
To Twelfth and Wabash and I'll pay you back 
For me and Garda. 

No, I said, go on. 
Try to be good, but if you can't be good. 
Be wise, and do not go to Winston Prairie. 
I turned and disappeared among the crowds. 



[124] 



WILL BOYDEN LECTURES 

The Sunday after Cato Braden died 

Will Boyden lectured in the Masons' Hall 

Upon the theme, "Was Jesus Really Great?" 

At first he pointed out that Jesus knew 

No history except that of the Jews. 

And if he'd heard of Athens never spoke 

A word about it, never read a line 

Of Homer, Sophocles, or Aristotle, 

Or Plato, or of Virgil, never a word 

Concerning Egypt's wisdom, or of India's. 

And then he dropped this point with the remark 

That one could know one's people's history 

And that alone, and still be great, perhaps. 

But still he thought it was unfortunate 

That Jesus gave the Hebrews such a lift 

So that to-day they rule the Occident 

Where Athens should have ruled, if only Time 

Had given her the right dramatic touch 

To catch the populace. 

He then declared 
That Jesus was a poet, but he said : 
"What are his figures I Never a word of stars, 
And never a word of oceans, nor of mountains 

[125] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Save Olivet or Zion, so you see 

His limitations as to imagery. 

Then have you noted how his sombre soul 

Picked blasted fig-trees, tares, the leprous poor, 

And sepulchres and sewers, dirty cups, 

Wherewith to make interpretations, yes 

He spoke of lilies, too. Well, so have L 

And yet you people call me pessimist 

Because I've tried to rescue Winston Prairie, 

And have not shrunk from charging Winston Prairie 

With Cato Braden's death. The difference 

Between the Man of Galilee and me 

Is this : He wanted to fulfill the law 

Of Moses and Isaiah, make Jerusalem, 

Which was a Winston Prairie in a way, 

A Hebrew citadel to rule the world. 

And I, if I could have my way, would make 

Of Winston Prairie Athens." 

Then he said 
" I have four thoughts to-day to touch upon. 
The first one is concerning hogs — you start : 
Well, look at Matthew chapter eight and find 
How certain hogs had cast in them the devils 
Of fierceness, blindness, lustfulness and ran 
Down in the sea to kill themselves for being 
Made perfecter as hogs. Go get some hogs 
And let me try my hand at exorcising 

[126] 



WILL BOYDEN LECTURES 

The Winston Prairie devils which destroyed 
Poor Cato Braden. 

"My next thought is found 
In Matthew chapter nine ; and it is this ; 
When Jesus saw the multitude all fainting, 
And scattered abroad as sheep without a shepherd, 
His soul was stirred — that is a way with genius, 
Whether it be your Altgeld, Pericles, 
Or yet your artist soul like Heinrich Heine. 
But think of this : If you would lead and save 
The multitude, assuming that can be, 
Shall you accomplish it by rules and laws 
Applied externally, which is the way 
Ecclesiastic powers pursue and find 
Divine authority in Jesus for it ? 
Or shall you teach the way of opening up 
The soul of man to sun-Hght, letting in 
The Power which is around us, in the which 
We live and move, and so give chance for growth 
To what is in us ? For your shepherd drives. 
No, Jesus hit it better when he spoke 
Of leaven than of shepherds. 

"So if one 
Find leaven and would give it, let there be 
A few to watch the final hour with him. 
When he would be delivered from the cup, 
But knows it cannot be, that to refuse 
The cup is to deny the inexorable law. 
[ 127] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

" So now I come to what is chlefest here : 

Destroy this temple and I will re-build it 

In three days. Now you know what preachers say 

This means the resurrection — not at all ! 

These were the greatest words that Jesus said. 

And here his genius seized its fullest power, 

Here was it that he hid Jerusalem 

Under his hands as if it were a toy, 

And tossed the world up as it were a ball. 

Why, what are temples, cities, cultures, ages 

Of beauty, glory, but the work of genius ^ 

What earth and stone and flesh but plastic stuff 

Responsive to the touch of prophet hands ? 

What Winston Prairie, what America 

And all this turbulence of bobbing heads 

In fields and markets, temples, halls across 

This continent of sovereign states but puppets 

Which may be changed in flesh, in deepest spirit, 

Made more erect, heroic, God-like, wise 

By genius' hands, not revolutionists', 

Nor shepherds'. So destroy America, 

But not by picks and axes, let it be 

As in the movies where a lovelier face 

Steals in and blots with brighter light a face, 

Which must fade out to let the lovelier face 

Complete the story. 

Now in a moment's silence 
Let's pray for Cato Braden." 

f 128 1 



THE DESPLAINES FOREST 

The sun has sunk below the level plain, 
And yet above the forest's leafy gloom 
The glory of the evening lightens still. 
Smooth as a mirror is the river's face 
With Heaven's light, and all its radiant clouds 
And shadows which against the river's shore 
Already are as night. From some retreat 
Obscure and lonely, evening's saddest bird 
Whistles, and beyond the water comes 
The musical reply, and silence reigns — 
Save for the noisy chorus of the frogs, 
And undistinguished sounds of faint portent 
That night has come. There is a rustic bridge 
Which spans the stream, from which we look below 
At Heaven above, till revery reclaims 
The mind from hurried thought and merges it 
Into the universal mind which broods 
O'er such a scene. Strange quietude o'erspreads 
The restless flame of being, and the soul 
Beholds its source and destiny and feels 
Not sorrowful to sink into the breast 
Of that large life whereof it is a part. 
What are we ? But the question is not solved 
K [129] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Here in the presence of intensest thought, 
Where nature stills the clamor of the world, 
And leaves us In communion with ourselves. 
Hence to the strivings of the clear-eyed day 
What take we that shall mitigate the pangs 
That each soul Is alone, and that all friends 
Gentle and wise and good can never soothe 
The ache of that sub-consciousness which is 
Something unfathomed and unmedicined ? 
Yet this It Is which keeps us In the path 
Of some ambition cherished or pursued ; 
The still, small voice that is not quieted 
By disregard, but ever speaks to us 
Its mandates while we wake or sleep, and asks 
A closer harmony with that great scheme 
Which is the music of the universe. 

So as the cherubim of Heaven defend 
The realms of the unknown with flaming swords, 
Thence are we driven to the world which is 
Ours to be known through Art, who beckons us 
To excellence, and in her rarer moods 
Casts shadowy glances of serener lands. 
Where all the serious gods, removed from stress 
And interruption, build, as we conceive. 
In fellowship that knows not that reserve 
Which clouds the hearts of those who wish to live 
As they, in that large realm of perfect mind. 
[ 130] 



THE GARDEN 

I do not like my garden, but I love 

The trees I planted and the flowers thereof. 

How does one choose his garden ? O with eyes 

O'er which a passion or illusion lies. 

Perhaps it wakens memories of a lawn 

You knew before somewhere. Or you are drawn 

By an old urn, a little gate, a roof 

Which soars into a blue sky, clear, aloof. 

One buys a garden gladly. Even the worst 

Seems tolerable or beautiful at first. 

Their very faults give loving labor scope : 

One can correct, adorn ; 'tis sweet to hope 

For beauty to emerge out of your toil, 

To build the walks and fertilize the soil. 

Before I knew my garden or awoke 

To its banality I set an oak 

At one end for a life-long husbandry, 

A white syringa and a lilac tree. 

Close to one side to hide a crumbling wall, 

Which was my neighbor's, held in several 

Title and beyond my right to mend — 

One cannot with an ancient time contend. 

[131] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Some houses shadowed me. I did not dream 
The sun would never look o'er them and gleam, 
Save at the earliest hour. So all the day 
One half my garden under twilight lay. 
Another soul had overlooked the shade : 
I found the boundaries of a bed he made 
For tulips. Well, I had a fresher trust 
And spent my heart upon this sterile dust. 
What thing will grow where never the sun shines ? 
Vainly I planted flowering stalks and vines. 
What years to learn the soil ! Why even weeds 
Look green and fresh. But if one concedes 
Salvia will flourish not, nor palest phlox 
One might have hope left for a row of box. 

Why is it that some silent places thrill 
With elfin comradeship, and others fill 
The heart with sickening loneliness } My breast 
Seems hollow for great emptiness, unrest 
Casting my eyes about my garden where 
I still must live, breathing its lifeless air. 
Why should I have a garden anyway ? 
I have so many friends who pass the day 
In streets or squares, or little barren courts, 
I fancy there are gardens of all sorts, 
Far worse than mine. And who has this delight : 
There's my syringa with Its blooms of white ! 
It flourishes in my garden ! In this brief 
[ 132] 



THE GARDEN 

Season of blossoms and unfolding leaf 
What if I like my garden not but love 
The oak tree and the lilac tree thereof, 
And hide my face, lest one my rapture guess, 
Amid the white syringa's loveliness ? 



[133] 



THE TAVERN 

{For my daughter Madeline) 

Nothing disturbed my night of sleep, 

I wonder that I ever woke 

It was so heavy, was so deep 

I scarce had heard the thunder-stroke. 

So what was drinking, feasting, talking 

By guests who came and guests who went, 

Or those who spent the time in walking 

The halls and rooms in argument 

About the Tavern ? Some declared 

No better Tavern could be built. 

And others called it a deception, 

Its purest gold but thinnest gilt, 

A cruel cheat considering 

No other Tavern gave reception 

To folks who might be wayfaring 

Anywhere in the whole wide land. 

I woke a stranger to it all, 

But quickly grew to understand 

The ways and customs which prevailed : 

Those who won favor, those who failed ; 

What feasting rooms had echoed laughter ; 

[134] 



THE TAVERN 

What kisses stolen in what hall ; 
What corners where the old had cried ; 
What stairways where the breathless bride 
Paused for a moment just to toss 
Among the bridesmaids her bouquet; 
What rooms where men in work or play 
Approved or cursed for gain or loss 
The Tavern's roof-tree, roof and rafter. 

Then when I woke, as I have said, 
Save a few children there was none 
Who was not older far than I. 
Many were trembling gray of head ; 
The strong walked forth in rain or sun 
And seemed all danger to defy. 
All welcomed me and called me fair. 
And told me strange events which passed 
Around the Tavern while I slept. 
Soon there were changes. Scarce aware 
Of their departure many stept 
Out of the door and seemed to cast 
Their fortunes elsewhere, but as fast 
New guests came in to take the places 
Of those who left. And through the day 
I lost the old, remembering faces 
Freshly arrived. When it was noon 
I knew what things were opportune, 
I had become one of the crowd 

[135] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

In all their ways initiate : 

Knew what their love was, what their hate, 

Myself stole kisses in the hall, 

And saw the old who sat and cried 

In corners, saw the rosy bride 

Pause for a moment just to toss 

Among the bridesmaids her bouquet, 

Where I stood best man to the groom. 

Was myself of the noisy room, 

Where men in work or men in play 

Approve or curse the gain or loss. 

Toward afternoon I seemed to feel 

More people knew me than I knew. 

Then it was good to meet with you. 

I saw you as you left the stair. 

And who were you ? I do not dare 

To praise your brow, or paint your hair, 

Your eyes how gray, or were they blue ? 

A pain strikes through me if I let 

The full strength of my love have sway. 

I only know I can forget 

All others who had gone away 

Remembering our happy day 

Together in the house and yard. 

It was to you all fair and new. 

You listened with such rapt regard 

To all the stories of the guests, 

[136] 



THE TAVERN 

And what had been their interests. 
And was the Tavern just the same 
As it had been before you came, 
You asked me, and I answered, yes, 
No change, my dear, not even the name. 

No change, except the people change, 

And change they do, I must confess. 

In truth a few alone remain 

Of those who lived here when I first 

Entered the door there, most are strange. 

And as I rose much earlier 

Than you arose, you may suppose 

I shall grow drowsy, yet who knows 

Before you do, and leave the stir 

The dancing, feasting, just to creep 

Back for another night of sleep. 

Fd like so well to stay awake 

And watch the dancing for your sake. 

It may be, though it scarce may be — 

No one remained awake for me. 

You cannot fail to find the bed 
When you are sleepy, but no doubt 
It will be black with the light out. 
Come dear, that sleep is loveliest 
Where side by side two lovers rest. 
That sweetens sleep — it may be best ! 

[137] 



O SAEPE MECUM 

{For E. J. S.) 

Edward ! you knew the city and you knew 
Where dancing and where music were, 
And every hall and theatre, 
And every green purlieu 

Of gardens where beneath the vines and trees 
One might sip beer and be consoled 
By music mixed with talk, behold 
The summer's devotees 

About the tables, idling June away. 
And you knew chicory and cress, 
With French or Mayonnaise could dress 
A salad, growing gay 

As you poured Burgundy or Rhenish wine, 
Or had a sirloin brought to see 
If it were ripe, the recipe 
For broiling it, to dine 

Thereon in fitting state, the waiter took 
And bowed in admiration, then 
You snapped your silver case again 
And from the holders shook 

[138] 



O SAEPE MECUM 

Such cigarettes as Turkish grandees smoke, 
And blew the perfumed incense forth, 
Descanting on our Hfe, the worth 
Of lawyers, noted folk : 

Of judges, politicians, governors, 
Until the dinner came at last. 
And there amid the rich repast 
We poor solicitors 

Gloried in life, and ruddy faced would laugh 

At any mishap, any fate 

That we could fancy might await, 

And glorying would quaff 

Incredible goblets of the quickening juice, 
With blackest coffee topping all. 
And afterwards a cordial — 
Nothing we could abuse 

And nothing hurt us, Edward ! It was well 
We lived, I think, and memories stored : 
For now I am a little bored 
With the invariable 

And settled round of nights and days wherein 
I must have sleep to work, and keep 
Abstemious to work and sleep — 
While you long since have been 
[139] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

The tangled lion of a woman's hair 
Who reads you novels and the news, 
And mends you, tends you, even brews 
Your broth and gives you care 

In these dyspeptic mornings. As for me 
The cafes, gardens haunt me yet. 
I go about as one who can't forget 
A dead felicity — 

The Bismarck, Rector's where I enter not 
The music all is changed — and where 
No faces that we knew are there, 
And where we are forgot. 



[140 



MALACHY BEGAN 

Malachy, you stand a referee to judge 
Under a torrent of blue light 
The naked pugilists who fight, 
Grim faces with a smudge 

Of blood, or on the sliding arms or backs, 
There on a platform roped, in palls 
Of smoke to the roof of Tattersall's, 
And where the iterant cracks 

Of matches struck for lights prick through the hum 
Of voices over toned by cries 
Of "Finish him," "Look at his glassy eyes," 
"That sounded like a drum." 

When the timekeeper's gong went clang ! clang 1 
And a hush came over us, as then 
Bath robes slipped off, the fighting men 
Out of their corners sprang. 

And in between the tangled arms and legs. 
And clinches which you break, you glide 
Red-haired, athletic, watchful eyed, 
And like a lager keg's 

[141] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Round fulness is your chest, your arms all bare, 

Coatless, a figure memorable. 

You should not be forgotten — well 

And if it be to dare 

The censure of a taste American 
To celebrate your courage, wit, 
I write you down what here is writ : 
A referee, a man ! 

A judge who loved the game and whose decree 
Had no taint on it, was more pure 
Than much of our judicature, 
Of every knavery free. 

And what is here to shock or shake such nerves 
As children's are, delicate women's } 
There goes the short hook of Fitzsimmons, 
And Thorne a moment swerves. 

Then topples over, and lies quiet while 
You count from one slowly to nine. 
And Thorne lies there without a sign 
Of life, but with a smile 

After a time gets up, and reels across 
The ring to his own corner, there 
Flops wobbly in his corner's chair. 
And wonders at his loss. 

[142] 



MALACHY DEGAN 

While full ten thousand cheer, and watch you shake 
The master hand, the general's. 
Such was our sport at Tattersall's 
Before the Puritan rake 

Combed through the city. Now the sport Is dead, 
And you are dust these several years. 
And we who drift to stale careers, 
And live along and tread 

The old deserted ways we loved and knew, 
Ask sometimes how it was a cough 
Could seize upon you, take you off — 
A lad as strong as you ? 



[143] 



MY DOG PONTO 

If I say to you "Come, Ponto, want some meat?" 
You laugh in your dog-way and bark your "Yes." 
And if I say "Shall we go walking" or 
"Stand up, nice Ponto," then you stand up, or 
If I say to you "Lie down" you lie down. 
You know what meat is, what it is to walk. 
You see the meat perhaps or get an image 
Of scampering on the street or chasing dogs 
While snifhng in fresh air, exploring bushes. 
Upon these levels our minds meet at once. 
As if they were the same stuff for such thoughts. 
But if I look into your eye and say : 
I'll read to you a chapter on harmonics. 
Here's mad Spinoza's close wrought demonstration 
Of God as substance, here is Isaac Newton's 
Great book on gravitation, here's a thesis 
Upon the logos, of the word made man. 
Or if I say let's talk about my soul — 
Since I have talked to yours in terms of meat — 
Which sails out like a spider on its thread 
Through mathematics, music, — look at you 
You merely lie there with half open eye, 
And thump your tail quite feebly just because, 
[144] 



MY DOG PONTO 

And for no other reason save Fm talking, 
And I'm your master and you're fond of me, 
And through affection would no doubt be glad 
To know what I am saying, as 'twere meat 
I might be saying. But I know a way 
To make you howl for things not understood : 
It makes you howl to hear my new Victrola 
With a Beethoven record, why is this ? 
Perhaps this is to you a maddening token 
Of realms that lie above the realms of meat. 
And torture you because they have suggestions 
Of things beyond you. 

But in any case. 
Dear Ponto, if you were an infidel 
You might say "What's harmonics I they're a joke." 
"And who's Spinoza, Newton, they are myths." 
"And mathematics, music, can you eat them," 
"For what you cannot eat has no existence." 
Deny them as you will these spheres of thought 
Lie as the steps of mountains over you. 
They wait for you to gain them, you can find them 
By rising to them, then how real they are ! 
As real as scampering when I take a walk. 
But are they all ? How do I know what spheres 
Of life lie all around me and above me. 
Just waiting not for me, but till I climb 
And rest awhile and take their meaning in. 
L [ 145 ] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

How do I know what hand plays a VIctrola 
With records greater than Beethoven's song, 
Which make me howl as piteously as you ? 
But here again our minds meet on a level : 
I know no more than you do why I howl ; 
Nor what it is that makes me howl, nor why. 
Though not content with meat, I want to know, 
And keep as all my own this higher music. 



[146] 



THE GOSPEL OF MARK 

How long have you been waiting ? Not so long ? 

Tm glad of that. You found the place at once. 

Well, there's the Campus Martins, when you're there 

You see above this Collis Hortulorum, 

A good place for two men like us to meet : 

Here's where luxurious souls have their abodes. 

That's Sallust's garden there. They do not care 

So much about us as some others do. 

There is a tolerance comes from being rich, 

An urbane soul is fashioned by a villa. 

Our faith is not to these a wicked thing, 

A deadly superstition as some deem it. 

But Mark, my son, there's Rome below you there — 

What temples, arches, under the full moon 1 

Here let us sit beside this chestnut tree. 

And while the soft wind blows out of the sea 

Let's finish up our talks. You must know all 

Wherewith to write the story ere I die 

Beneath the wrath of Nero. See that light, 

Faint like a little candle — I passed there. 

That's one of our poor men, they make us lamps 

Wherewith to light the streets and Nero's gardens. 

We shall be lamps they'll wish to snuff in time. 

[147] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

We met to-night at one Sllvanus' house. 
And I was teUing them about the night 
When in Gethsemane you followed Him, 
Having a cloth around your naked body. 
And how you laid hold on him, left the cloth 
And fled. But when you write this you can say 
'*A certain young man," leaving out your name, 
You may not wish to have it known 'twas you 
Who ran away, as I would like to hide 
How I fell into sleep and failed to watch. 
And afterwards declared I knew Him not : 
But as for me omit no thing. The world 
Will gain for seeing me rise out of weakness 
To strength, and out of fear to boldness. Time 
Has wrought his wonders in me, I am rock. 
Let hell beat on me, I shall stand from now ! 

Then don't forget the first man that he healed. 

There's deep significance in this, my son. 

That first of all he'd take an unclean spirit 

And cast it out. Then second was my mother 

Cured of her fever, just as you might say: 

Be rid of madness, things that tear and plague, 

Then cool you of the fever of vain life. 

But don't forget to write how he would say 

"Tell no man of this," say that and no more. 

Though I may think he said it lest the crowds 

That followed him would take his strength for healing, 

[148] 



THE GOSPEL OF MARK 

And leave no strength for words, let be and write 
"Tell no man of this" simply. For you see 
These madmen quieted, these lepers cleaned 
Had soon to die, all now are dead, perhaps. 
And with them ends their good. But what he said 
Remains for generations yet to come, with power 
To heal and heal. My son, preserve your notes, 
Of what Tve told you, even above your life. 
Make many copies lest one script be lost. 
I shall not to another tell it all 
As I have told it you. 



But as for me 
What merit have I that I saw and said 
"Thou art the Christ.^" One sees the thing he 

sees. 
That is a matter of the eye — behold 
What is the eye .? Is there an Eye Power which 
Produces eyes, a primal source of seeing. 
An ocean of beholding, as the ocean 
Makes rivers, streams and pools, so does this Power 
Make eyes ^ You take an egg and keep It warm 
About a day, then break the shell and look : 
You'll find dark spots on either side of what 
Will be the head in time, these will be eyes 
In season, but just now they cannot see, 
Although the Eye Power back of them can see 
Both what they are and how to make them eyes 

[149] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

By giving them its quality and strength. 

And all the time while these dark spots emerge 

From yolk to eyes, this Rome is here no less, 

This moon, these stars, this wonder ! Take a child 

It stares at flowers and tears them, or again 

It claws the whiteness of its mother's breast, 

Sees nothing but the things beneath its nose. 

The world around it lies here to be seen, 

And will be seen from boyhood on to age 

In diff"erent guises, aspects, richnesses 

According to the man, for every man 

Sees different from his fellow. What's an eye ? 

I say not what's an eye, but what is here 

For eyes to see I What wonders In that sky 

Beyond my eye ! What living things concealed 

Beneath my feet in grass or moss or slime, 

As small to crickets as they are to us 1 

For Nero at the Circus holds a ruby 

Before his eye to give his eye more sight 

To see the games and tortures. So I say 

There was no merit in me when I said 

*'Thou art the Christ." 

Let's think of eyes this way 
The lawyers said there's nothing in this fellow. 
His family beheld no wonder in him. 
Have Mary Magdalene and I Invented 
These words, this story ? — who are we to do so, — 

[ISO] 



THE GOSPEL OF MARK 

A fallen woman and a fisherman ! 

Or did this happen ? Did we see these things ? 

Did Mary see him risen and did I ? 

Were other eyes still dark spots on the yolk, 

And were our eyes full grown and did we see ? 

Is this a madman's world where I can talk, 

And have you write for centuries to read 

And play the fool with them ? Or do all things 

Of spirit, as of stars, of spring and growth 

Proceed In order, under law to ends ? 

No, Mark, my son, this Is the truth, so write, 

Preserve this story taken from my lips. 

My work Is almost done. Rome is the end 

Of all my labors, I have faith The Eye 

Will give me other eyes for other worlds 1 

Why should I not believe this .? Not all seasons 
Are for unfolding. In the winter time 
You cannot see the miracle of birth. 
Of germinating seeds, of blossoming. 
Why not then that one time for seeing Death 
Go up like mist before the rising sun ^ 
And In this single Instance of our Lord 
Arising from the grave, see all men rise. 
And all men's souls discovered In his soul. 
Their quality and essence, strength made clear? 
And why not I the seer of these things .? 
Why should there be another and not I ? 

[151] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And I declare to you that untold millions 

In centuries untold will live and die 

By these words which you write, as I have told them. 

And nation after nation will be moulded, 

As heated wax is moulded, by these words. 

And spirits in their inmost power will feel 

Change and regeneration through them — well, what 

then .? 
Do you say God is living, that this world, 
These constellations, move by law, that all 
This miracle of life and light is held 
In harmony, and that the soul of man 
Moves not in order, but that it's allowed 
To prove an anarch to itself, sole thing 
That turns upon itself, sole thing that's shown 
The path that leads no whither ? is allowed 
To feed on falsehood ^ that it's allowed 
To wander lawless to its ruin, fooled 
By what it craves, by what it feels, by eyes 
That swear the truth of what they see } by words 
Which you will write from words I have affirmed ? 
And do you say that Life shall prove the foe 
Of life, and Law of law } Or do you say 
The child's eyes see reality which see 
The poppy blossoms or the mother's breast. 
And this Rome and these stars do not exist 
Because the child's eyes cannot compass them. 
And get their image ? Shall we trust our vision 

[152] 



THE GOSPEL OF MARK 

Mounting to higher things, or only trust 

Those things which all have seen except the souls 

Who have not soared, or risen to the gift 

Of seeing what seemed walking trees grow clear 

As men or angels ? No, it cannot be. 

Man's soul, the chiefest flower of all we know, 

Is not the toy of Malice or of Sport. 

It is not set apart to be betrayed, 

Or gulled to its undoing, left to dash 

Its hopeless head against this rock's exception, 

No water for its thirst, no Life to feed it, 

No law to guide it, though this universe 

Is under Law, no God to mark its steps, 

Except the God of worlds and suns and stars, 

Who loves it not, loves worlds and suns and stars. 

And them alone, and leaves the soul to pass 

Unfathered — lets me have a madman's dream 

And gives it such reality that I 

Take fire and light the world, convincing eyes 

Left foolish to believe. It cannot be. . . . 

Go write what I have told you, come what will 
I'm going to the catacombs to pray. 



[153] 



MARSYAS 

Pallas Athena in an hour of ease 
From guarding states and succoring the wise, 
Pressed wistfully her lips against a flute 
Made by a Phrygian youth from resonant wood 
Cut near Sangarius. Upon a bank 
Made sweet by daisies and anemone 
She sat with godly wisdom exercised 
Blowing her breath against the stubborn tube 
That it might answer and vibrate in song. 
But while she played, down-looking, she beheld 
A serpent's eyes, which by the water's edge 
Lay coiled among the reeds, as if aware 
Of the divinity that filled the place. 
Then Athena saw her image in the cove, 
Where like a silver mirror, motionless 
Sangarius lay, and seeing her own face 
Thus suddenly, was stricken with surprise 
Of her fair forehead wrinkled, and her lips 
Pursed and distorted as she strove to curb 
The resisting instrument. So with a smile, 
A little laugh, which brought her beauty back, 
And gilded like a gradual burst of sun 
The water where the charmed serpent lay 

[154] 



MARSYAS 

Lifting his head up to the living warmth, 
. She threw the flute down, and Olympus way- 
Vanished, from sight. 

Marsyas all the while 
Beneath an oak's shade by the water's edge 
Had drowsed voluptuously, and heard the notes. 
Dreaming some shepherd youth who watched his sheep 
Upon a near-by hill which to the swale 
Sloped in luxuriance, upon a reed 
His idle fancies loosened from the stops. 
But when Athena passed him, since he heard 
A roar of wings, as when a flock of quail 
Up-fly the hunter's step, he woke to find 
The forest silent and the music gone. 
Then straying toward the rushes, he espied 
The flute upon the golden sands, and took it 
And tried his lips upon it, where the lips 
Of Pallas Athena left it fragrant, moist. 
And with a soul, which to the artless breath 
Of the rude Satyr gave melodious speech. 
So thinking that the music was his own 
And that the flute was but a worthless wood 
Save that it made his genius manifest. 
And swollen with conceit Marsyas sent 
A word of challenge to the Delphic god, 
Apollo of the cithara, for trial 
Of skill in music, saying who should prove 

[iSS] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

The victor might do with the other what 
Pleased him to do, and let the Muses judge. 

But when Athena heard Apollo laugh, 
Where the nine Muses gossiped of the dare 
Which Marsyas uttered, for the lower meadows 
Of flowered Olympus whispered of the thing 
In jest and quip, and knowing that her soul 
Still echoed in the flute, but would anon 
Fade from it as the perfume from a girdle 
Tinct by the touch of Aphrodite's hand, 
Spoke to Apollo : "Grant a little time 
Wherein the Satyr may improve his skill." 
To which the Muses nodded 'mid their smiles. 
But yet Apollo gave assent, though teased 
By reason of their chatter and the thought 
Hid in Athena's word that any respite 
Granted the Satyr could prosper his success. 

Meanwhile Marsyas waited for the day 

Appointed of Apollo. Near Sangarius 

And through the woodlands tireless with the flute 

Sometimes in imitative harmony 

Mocking the sound of fluttering leaves, and now 

The musical winds that blow in early spring 

Around a peak of dancing asphodel 

Where the sea warms them, and at other times 

The little waves that patter on the sands 

[156] 



MARSYAS 

Of old Sangarius rich in numerous flags. 
And once he strove with music's alchemy 
To turn to sound the sunlight of the morn 
Which fills the senses as illuminate dew- 
Quickens the ovule of the tiger-flower. 
Again he sang the sorrow of his youth 
When a wild nymph after one day of bliss 
Fled him while sleeping. And again he beat 
The rhythm lying at the root of life 
Which marks the whirling planets. And Apollo 
Hearing betimes a note of purest tone 
Fall like a star, betrayed his wonderment — 
Whereat the muses vexed him with their smiles 
And whisperings to each other. But Apollo 
Could sense the Satyr's waning skill, which dulled 
With its employment, as Athena's soul 
Died from the flute, although the Satyr knew not 
Each day of waiting doomed him : 

Then at last 
The day dawned for the trial of their skill, 
And Marsyas came bearing the hollow flute — 
For all had left it of Athena's soul. 
Then on Sangarius' wooded banks the muses 
To judge assembled, fair, majestical. 
With arms entwined some close together stood, 
Some half-reclined upon the flowery grass. 
But all bore in their eyes the light of mirth 
[157] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Suppressed, half-hidden. Then, for that Euterpe 

Was mistress of the flute, since it was deemed 

Fair to the Satyr that the contest be 

Judged by the flute, gave signal to begin. 

Whereat Apollo struck the cithara 

To test the strings, and all the wood was hushed, 

Awed by the magic of its harmony. 

But when Marsyas blew upon the flute 

A fear coursed through him as his wonder rose 

Whether Apollo had bewitched its soul 

To such discordance, or its utterance, 

Such as he knew it, when compared with the god's 

Was so unmusical. Yet he dare not fail 

The contest, so they waged it to the end. 

While the sweet muses now grown pitiful 

No longer smiled, but turned their heads away 

In sorrow for Marsyas, for his shame 

And for the fate to follow. 

So at last 
With one accord the muses rose and looked 
With eyes significant upon Apollo, 
Who angered by the Satyr's swollen pride 
And monstrous failure, had become a will 
Of resolute retribution. But the muses, 
Because they feel for those who trying lose, 
Even as a mother for her crippled son 
Whom the sound-footed distance in the race, 
[IS8] 



MARSYAS 

Hastened away lest they behold the thing 
That came to pass. And flinging far the flute 
Marsyas shrieked and sank upon the earth. 

Whereat Apollo seized his wretched form 

And lifting him up, with strips of laurel bark 

Bound the poor Satyr to a rugged oak 

And flayed him alive, and took the Satyr's skin 

And hung it in a cave, and turned his blood 

To water, whence the river Marsyas 

That from the cave flows onward to this day. 



159] 



WORLDS BACK OF WORLDS 

This was the world : It was a house 
With a cool hallway end to end 
Where buckets, pans and dippers hung, 
And coats that in the breezes swung ; 
And eaves in which 'twas good to browse 
On books stored in a musty box. 
Along the walks were lilac boughs, 
And by the windows hollyhocks. 
And there were fields down to the hills 
Which marked the earth's far boundary; 
A church-spire at the roadway's bend, 
And barns and cribs and twinkling mills, 
And neighbor friends like Mrs. Gray, 
And endless days of dream and play. 
It was a world so guarded, safe. 
So cherished by a God-watched sky 
Seeing the summers come and pass, 
A world so quiet it appeared 
Like to the mimic world ensphered 
By witchery of the old field glass 
Which from an uncle's drawer I took 
Upon the distant hills to look. 
[i6o] 



WORLDS BACK OF WORLDS 

You know not then that worlds not dead 
Lie back of you and bide their chance 
To seize your world of ignorance : 
There was an opening in the ceiling 
Above the kitchen where the man 
Sat humming to himself at night 
Amid the enshadowed candle-light, 
And played on his accordion 
Happy, unconscious and alone. 
There full of mischief would I lie 
And watch him through the ceiling's hole, 
And laugh for thought of elfish tricks, 
Of whispering words or dropping sticks 
To fright his well contented soul. 
Sometimes I think there is an eye 
Which is not God's that spies upon us ; 
That other worlds may lie about us 
Our fathers or our mothers lived. 
Where Forces lurk and laugh and wait. 

Here then was my world's fair estate — 
For so I knew it — could it be 
Disturbed or wrecked ^ I never thought 
That change or loss could come to me, 
With God above the church's spire. . . . 

But what are all these April dreams ? 
Less tangible the landscape seems ; 
M f i6i 1 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

The windmills, barns and houses swim 
In a sphered ether, wheeling, dim. 
Red cattle on green meadows pass 
Across a belt of bluest sky- 
Like objects in the old field glass. 
The chickens stalk about the yard 
Like phantom things in my regard 
And songs and cries and voices sound 
Like muffled echoes from the ground. 
Stones and dead sticks crawl and move; 
And bones that through the winter lay 
Something of living power betray. 
I sink in all things dizzily, 
Made one with nature, all I see, 
Until I have no way to prove 
My separate identity. 
Yet death is what ^ Why, death is this : 
Something that comes but is far off. 
They worry sometimes for my cough. 
I know they watch me, know they cry, 
But what can wreck my earth or sky ? 

The doctor comes now every day 
And with my father sits and talks, 
Or stands about the garden walks. 
One day I hear them : "It appears 
Sometimes in ten or twenty years 
As madness or paralysis. 

[162] 



WORLDS BACK OF WORLDS 

Sometimes it passes, leaves a scar 

And never troubles one again. 

You say you had this in the war ? 

It's hit your boy as phthisis, 

Also I think he's going blind." 

I saw my father trembling wind 

Some plucked grass round and round his hand. 

They noticed me, walked further on 

And left me dreaming where I sat. 

Some years since that day now are gone. 
I have no world now, none but night. 
My father's world lay back of mine 
And wrecked my world so guarded, safe, 
So cherished by a God-watched sky 
Which looked on summers rise and pass, 
So like an image caught and held 
By witchery of the old field glass. 



[163] 



THE PRINCESS' SONG 

" Blow, blow, thou wind, 
Blow Conrad's hat away. 
Its rolling do not stay. 
Till I have combed my hair, 
And tied it up behind." 

Blow, blow, thou wind. 
Blow Conrad's love away. 
My prince will come to-day. 
Let him but find me fair. 
And searching find. 

The queen my mother grieves 
For hopes that went astray. 
Blow thou my grief away. 
Among the April flags. 
Among the dancing leaves. 

Fill thou their golden wings. 
And make the great clouds fly 
Like swans across the sky. 
Above the mountain crags 
Where the young eaglet clings. 

[164] 



THE PRINCESS' SONG 

Blow — yet the mad wind dies 
Among the flags and ferns. 
And Conrad still returns, 
Ere I have bound my hair, 
Or dried my eyes. 

Blow, blow, thou wind — 
Blow Conrad's love away. 
But since it will not stay. 
Blow thou afar my care 
And make me kind. 

As even, lad, thou art. 

Blow, blow, thou wind, but since 

Vainly I wait the prince 

Come, Conrad, loose my hair, — 

Thou loyal heart ! 



[i65l 



THE FURIES 



But you must act. And therein lies the way 
Of freedom from the Furies. You must burn 
The substance of your being, if you stay 
The impetus of life you will not learn 
The simples of salvation. Go pluck off 
A serpent from Alecto's head and laugh 
Exhilarate with its poison. If you scoif 
You will perceive. You cannot love the staff 
You have not scorned. You cannot weigh the act 
You have not lived, the fear you did not prove. 
Your soul was made to focus and extract 
Through action every hatred, every love. 
Pour out yourself if you would know release 
From what the Furies do to spoil your peace. 

II 

Ambition that eludes, love never found 
High hopes that tempt, or goodness still pursued 
Have their own Furies, for this mortal ground 
Breeds serpents from the blood of fortitude 
And action as it does from listless fear. 

r i66 1 



THE FURIES 

You have aspired and fallen, curse the past 
Till madness come ! Be quiet, hide or sear 
The memory of the dream, no less at last 
The Sisters shall arrive 1 How do they come ? 
Your life grows round a moral governance 
And you have served it. You are stricken dumb 
To see it crumble spite of vigilance. 
Now when you cannot think, rebuild, repair 
The Sisters come and wheel your cripple's chair. 

Ill 

You were a fennel stalk that laughed and grew 
With laughter till the life in you could use 
The cells no further, then the cold winds blew, 
And you fell whispering of the April dews. 
Grown fair or foul the rhythmic force was spent. 
The summer gone, your little past achieved, 
Repulsions balanced, though you might lament 
So much neglected, or too much believed. 
You were a dry weed when a Great Hand seized 
And bore you as a carrier of fire. 
The garden you had grown In had not pleased ! 
Was this, perhaps, the end of your desire ? 
You lit a heap of leaves where children came, 
The Furies meditating watched the flame ! 



[167] 



APOLLO AT PHER^ 

Zeus envied ^sculapius that he healed 
The sick and brought the dead to life, and fain 
Would slay him. So the Cyclops brought Zeus light- 
ning 
With which Zeus smote the healer. Then Apollo 
Destroyed the Cyclops, grieving for his son. 
And Clotho laughed to see the thread of fate 
Slip by Atropos, woven in the cloth 
Of destiny. For had she cut the thread 
Shot from the spindle, then a little trace 
Of scarlet, but no figures of despair 
Had marked the storied tapestry. So Apollo 
Was doomed for punishment to tend the flocks 
Of King Admetus, lord of Pherae. Next 
Apollo met a mortal woman, daughter 
Of an old soldier, servitor of the gods 
And rich in land. 

He, sitting on a rock 
That overlooked a green Thessallan field 
Where grazed the flocks, clad In a leopard's skin, 
His crook beside him, dreamed of wide Olympus : 
"This hour the muses dance, the Council sits 
And there Is high debate, or Hera storms 

[i68] 



APOLLO AT PHER.E 

For Zeus' absence ; there is life, and I 

Unknown, alone, a shepherd by this field 

Of pastoral pathos labor all the day." 

And then a step disturbed his revery; 

And looking up he saw a slender maid 

White as gardenias, jonquil-haired, with eyes 

As blue as Peneus when he meets the sea. 

And an old weakness crept upon the god. 

For ever in his soul there shone the face 

Of woman, like the face of Artemis, 

His virgin sister, delicate and chaste ; 

And to o'ercome such whiteness and reserve 

Had been Apollo's madness from his birth. 

And this Chione, daughter of the soldier, 

Servitor of the gods and rich in land 

At once became his passion. So he rose 

And to Chione spoke, and she, to him. 

And then anon she saw the unkept curls 

Sun-bleached, that touched his shoulders, then his 

breast. 
Smooth as her own, and then his arms, his hands 
His shapely knees, his firm and pointed feet. 
And her eyes closed as stars beneath the dawn 
And dawn rose in her cheeks. And the god knew 
Her inmost thought. 

So all that day they played. 
Amid the wind-blown light of Thessaly. 

[169] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

He wove her traps for crickets from the grass, 

And from the willow branches made her flutes ; 

He caught her butterflies, and sang her runes 

Of living things, and how the earth and sea 

From Erebus and Love sprang into being ; 

And how the sun, and the bright pageant of the stars 

Dance joyously to music. And Chione 

Was dumb for happiness ; and the day went by. 

But with the dusk there came a swooning languor, 

All was forgotten save the shepherd's face 

Held close to hers, and round his moving curls 

The circled splendor of the sickle moon — 

Nor eyes, nor lips, only a golden blur. 

And rousing she beheld the enshadowed field 

Flockless and silent, and the shepherd gone. 

Then through the night Chione weakly walked 

And found at last her home. 

The light of day 
Brought terror to Chione. Then she sought 
And found Apollo where he sat before 
And told him that her father, the old soldier, 
Was favored of Admetus, and would bring 
The royal power against him, if he failed 
The troth of wedlock. And Apollo mused 
Upon his exile from Olympus' throne. 
And Zeus' wrath against him, that he slew 
The Cyclops, and upon his shepherd state 

[170] 



APOLLO AT PHER^ 

Tending Admetus' flocks, and how unknown 
And weak he stood between these kingly hands 
Of Zeus and of Admetus. And seeing her fair, 
More fair in tears, he gave her his consent. 

Next day Chione brought the god a robe 
And sandals and a girdle. Thus arrayed 
Chione took him to her father's home 
The ancient soldier, servitor of the gods, 
And rich in land, and spoke of him as Acteus 
A merchant from the city. Then the father 
Gave thanks to Zeus and at the family board 
Apollo supped, as one who would become 
Chione's husband. So it came to pass. 
They walked together in the bridal train 
Behind the perfumed torches. 

All the while 
Zeus smiled to see Apollo's punishment. 
And Hera, who with woman's subtlety. 
Knew that there shone within Apollo's soul 
A face like to the face of Artemis, 
His virgin sister, delicate and chaste. 
And to o'ercome such whiteness and reserve 
Had been Apollo's madness from his birth. 
Laughed freely with the muses as she said : 
"Thus is the mascuUne spirit ever caught 
By its own lure, let Zeus himself take heed 
Lest sometime he be snared." 

[171] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

So when Olympus 
Grew dull, the gods for fun looked o'er the ramparts 
And spied upon Apollo at the board 
With all Chione's family ; or at night 
Beside Chione and the little faces 
Which every year increased. Or on Apollo 
About his bitter task of shepherding 
To win the bread for faded Chione 
And for the children. 

Thus the nine years passed. 
Then Zeus, avenged, sent all the muses down 
To bring Apollo back, and to Olympus 
Humbled and sorrowful he came again. 
With wrinkles and a touch of whitened hair, 
And a lack-lustre eye, which all the art 
Of Aphrodite after many days 
Could scarce remove. 

Then Chione told her father 
That Acteus was not a merchant from the city. 
"Too late," she said, "I found he had deceived me 
And masked his shepherd calling." 

To which her father 
The ancient soldier, servitor of the gods 
And rich in land : "Yea, daughter, he deceived you. 
Now he has run away, abandoned you. 
May the gods note it and avenge the wrong." 

[172I 



STEAM SHOVEL CUT 

Steam Shovel Cut lies through a wood, 
And the trestle's at the end. 
And north are the lonely Fillmore Hills, 
And south the river's bend. 

It's Christmas day and the blue on the hill 
Is flapped by a flying crow. 
And the steel of the railroad track is cold, 
And the Cut is piled with snow. 

What is that there by the trestle's end 
Where the Cut slopes down to the slough ? 
That's Cora Williams lying there 
In her cloak of faded blue. 

Her skirt is red as a northern spy, 
And her mittens blackberry black. 
And under her cotton underskirt 
There's a green place on her back. 

Her little gray hat is over her brow. 
And covers a purple bruise. 
She had white stockings lor her feet 
And the holes were in her shoes. 
[173] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Where did you meet Croak Carless, girl ? 
And where did you start to booze ? 
They saw you once at Rigdon's place, 
And last at Sandy Hughes*. 

On the night that Jesus Christ was born 
You were drinking gin and beer. 
They saw you sitting on Carless' knees 
As the midnight hour drew near. 

They saw you two start into the night, 
And the night was cold and black. 
And then they found you there by the bridge 
With the green bruise on your back. 

Down through the dark to the Shovel Cut 
The two of you walked and sang. 
You were holding hands on the trestle bridge 
When the bell began to clang. 

'Twas back of the curve that the head-light shone 

So what was the use of eyes } 

The mad iron thing leaped on you there 

As you ran on the trestle ties. 

It rushed on you like a furious bull 
That charges a scarlet flag. 
The engineer looked long at the gauge 
As the fireman scraped the slag. 

[174] 



STEAM SHOVEL CUT 

Croak Carless jumped and fell on a stone 
And the world to him was a blank. 
But the iron thing struck at your back 
And doubled you down on the bank. 

Croak Carless woke from a sleep like death 
And found you covered with blood. 
He slinks to the river to wash his hands, 
He runs to hide in the wood. 

He steals through thickets, hides in a barn, 
He cowers where the corn's in shock. 
But the posse catches Croak by noon, 
And the jailer turns the lock. 

Croak Carless' wife weeps at the bars, 
Croak weeps in a grated cell. 
They've mortgaged the farm for a lawyer's fee 
To save Croak's soul from hell. 

For the Coroner has a bat-like thing 
In a bottle safe in his room. 
It looks like a baby devil fish — 
It's Cora Williams' womb. 

A woman's womb is a thing of doom 
And winged with a fan-like mesh. 
And who was the father, they're asking Croak, 
Of this bit of jelly flesh .? 
[175] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And the doctors took an oath in the court 
That a sharp club did the deed. 
And the judge was a foe of the lawyer man 
Croak Carless paid to plead. 

And Croak had talked too much in jail, 
And he trembled and testified 
To a woeful tangle of time and place, 
And the jury thought he lied. 

Croak Carless' wife sobbed out in court 

As they twisted him out and in. 

For they made him swear he drank with the girl, 

And swear to his carnal sin. 

They stood him up on the gallow's trap 
And his voice was clear and low: 
If I killed Cora Williams, men, 
My soul to hell should go. 

They sprang the trap, Croak Carless shot 
Like a wheat bag toward the floor. 
And the doctors let his body hang 
Till his old heart beat no more. 

They let him alone to work and sweat 
For a wife's and children's ease. 
But they hung him up for a little beer 
With a woman on his knees. 

[176] 



STEAM SHOVEL CUT 

And he might have died in bed in a year, 
For when they opened him up 
They found his heart was a played out pump, 
And leaked like a rusty cup. 

And a man can live as the church decrees, 
Or dance in the way of vice, 
A woman's womb is a thing of doom, 
And life is the current price. 

'Tis a vampire bat, or the leather box 
From which you rattle the dice. 
'Tis an altar of doom, is a woman's womb, 
And man is the sacrifice. 



177] 



THE HOUSES 

You wonder why I bought so many houses, 

Bought and repaired, built over home on house. 

The first one was to make a home for Mary, 

And Frank and Bessie, for I had myself 

A settled home when I was boy and man, 

And knew the feeling of respect, content 

Which comes of one familiar and continued 

Habita^tion for a boy who's growing. 

The first house, then, was poor enough, God knows ! 

A place that smelt in all the rooms of breath 

A sick man breathes into the very paper. 

The rat holes in the base boards had to be 

Stopped up with plaster, all the floors were loose. 

Bricks lay awry upon the chimney tops. 

An old well with a windlass on the porch 

Made one remember typhoid all the time. 

Some apple trees half-rotted, covered over 

With water sprouts stood in a yard of weeds. 

A barn was at the yard's end out of shape 

From leaning at an angle. All in all 

The place was haunted, but it was the best 

I could afford just then, and naturally 

She hated it and grumbled all the time. 

[178] 



THE HOUSES 

A few years past, It seemed scarce two or three, 

And all the children married, went away. 

Just then I grew more prosperous and built over 

The haunted house, and built a handsome barn, 

Cut out the apple trees, destroyed the weeds, 

And put an Iron fence around the yard. 

Put bathrooms, running water In the house. 

She jawed at me for doing this, and asked 

Why did you wait until the children left ? 

Of course she knew, but blamed me just the same. 

And so we had no pleasure with this house. 

She wanted larger rooms, and trees In front, 

A sunny dining room — there was that porch 

On which ours looked, and though I closed the well 

She often wondered why we had not died 

Before I closed it. 

And about this time 
Our banker moved away and left his house 
For sale at public auction. I went down 
Alone, not telling her, to look at it. 
Here was a house upon a stone foundation 
Built of red brick, peaked roof of slate, three stories, 
Brick walks about the yard with plots of flowers, 
A barn of brick — it was the very place ! 
There now were grandchildren ; and so I dreamed 
How they would romp about this lovely yard, 
Or play on rainy days in that wide garret. 

[179] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And so I bid and got the house at auction. 

But when I told her she was up in arms : 

The house would hold a family of ten ! 

Besides the upper rooms were far too small : 

What is a dining room, or huge drawing room 

If you step out of bed against the wall ? 

Then there's that gully just below the barn 

Breeding malaria, the banker's family 

Were sick year in and out — that's why they sold it 

For anything at public sale. O fool ! 

Well, Mary came that summer with her children, 

And my poor dream in part was realized. 

But Frank and Bessie moved to California 

And never saw the happiness I planned 

For them and for their children. Mary's husband 

Disliked the house — his hatred was beginning. 

Next summer Mary left him and divorced him, 

And started out to earn her children's bread. 

She didn't come again. 

And so it was true. 
We didn't need so large a house — we sold it 
And bought a cottage of six rooms ; this time 
She joined with me in picking out the house. 
But that was nothing, for no other house 
Besides this one was up for sale just then. 
No sooner had we moved than she was full 
Of wounded memory and a mad regret : 
[180I 



THE HOUSES 

She saw what she had lost. These Httle rooms ! 

This front fence almost jammed against the door! 

And stoves again instead of radiators ! 

No running water, only an old pump 

Above the kitchen sink ! And near the station — 

The bawling bussmen bothered her at night ! 

The midnight train woke her unfailingly. 

And now she said our first house was all right 

With this, or that corrected. We had blundered 

In ever selling it and taking on 

Such luxury in the brick house. It had spoiled 

Her taste for living in a house like this, 

With just a little yard, that hideous fence. 

Which one could touch while standing in the door ! 

She said she could not breathe because of it, 

And railed against her fate so that it brought 

The next step in my life of buying houses. . . . 

Dreams entered in my brain of fields and woods, 
A little lake perhaps, river or stream. 
There was a fad of buying farms just then. 
I went to Michigan on other business, 
And there I saw one, bought it on the spot. 
You see I had the passion as of drink. 
And knew it as I ventured once again. 
But then there was the house upon the bluff ! 
And there below it was the river ! there 
Beeches and oaks down to the river's edge ! 
[181I 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

A great white house all new, and apple trees, 

A vineyard and a field of eighty acres. 

Here will I sit, I said, upon my bluff 

And watch the river. I will keep a man 

To farm the place, and prune the vines and trees, 

This is the place at last. But then I thought 

What will she say ? She wants a farm I know. 

But will this suit her ? So I sent for her. 

And when she came she kissed me, she was glad, 

Commended my good judgment, loved the house, 

Went through the barn in rapture, stood beneath 

The windmill, which was near, to watch it pump. 

Strolled down the wooded bluif, threw pebbles in 

The river where the swallows dipped and flew, 

And gathered daisies by the river's shore. 

I sat down in the grass flushed through with joy. 

Like one who finds his haven, who has solved 

Laborious troubles, thinking of the rest 

I should take here — a man to run the place, 

And months of summer recreation here ! 

I told her what my plan was. 

No, she said. 
To own a farm is business. You should know 
By this time that you have no head for business. 
I think youVe shown some wisdom in this farm, 
Or better you've had luck in buying it. 
Your other ventures buying houses were 
[182] 



THE HOUSES 

Enough to make you have distrust of self. 

Now that youVe bought the farm to make it pay 

Is what we have in hand, and you must work. 

We'll keep a man, but he cannot do all 

There is to do here, I will work and you 

Must work as well, the farm must pay, you know. 

I want the man to live with us in the house 

So I can watch him, rout him out to work 

At sun-up and keep watch upon his time. 

We'll keep two rooms for our use. For the man 
Must have a family, these single fellows 
Are off too much at night and think too much 
In working hours of what they'll do at night. 

Perhaps I am a weakling with my dream 

Of buying houses, for I dream of joys 

And build my palaces, invite my joys 

To enter and be glad. They never come ! 

She took the farm and ran it. It was business, 

But business in disorder with a loss 

For seed which did not sprout, and stock that died, 

And glutted markets when the fruit was good. 

I worked awhile, I fished once in the river, 

I sat a few times on my wooded bluff — 

And then I fled and left her to the farm 

To rule a single farmer who cut weeds. 

Abandoned weeds for plowing, left the plow 

[183] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

To make a flower bed, following her whims 
Obedient, indifi"erent to results. . . . 

If you destroy a bird's nest that's the end. 

The nesting birds return to find the branch 

Where they had builded with such patient care, 

All naked of their work. They look and fly 

And think of what ? But build no more that year. 

But if you take a twig and scratch the grains 

About the ant hill, overturn their work. 

Stop up the door, the little folk begin 

To build again, clear out the ruined hall — 

They cannot be discouraged like the birds. 

I think I am an ant — for even yet 

Fm looking for a house, or better a home. 

There is that house walled in with earth — that's 

sure — 
But if there is no house to fill my joy 
Why have I looked for houses all my life ? 



184] 



THE CHURCH AND THE HOTEL 

Over the dead lake 
And in a dusty sky 
The full moon is speared by the spire of the Baptist 

church ; 
Or now it hangs over the Groveland Hotel : 
I do not know whether it is over the spire 
Or over the hotel. 

In a dusty sky the moon 

Is the bottom of a copper kettle 

Which cannot be scoured into brightness. 

The sky is a faded mosquito net 

Over a brass cylinder cap 

Dulled with verdigris. 

Some years ago, 
Not many years ago, 
The Rev. Albert McDugall, D.D. 
At the pulpit under this spire 
With habitual regularity 
Used to say : 
Let us pray. 

And the Rev. Albert McDugall, D.D. 

[185] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

With habitual regularity 

Used to preach 

On the wages of sin. 

And on Sunday evenings 

As he was saying let us pray, 

Ed Breen in Henry Hughes' buffet, 

There in the Groveland Hotel 

Sitting with cronies at a table would say : 

"Another round, Henry, 

Bourbon for me." 

And at 7 : 30, 

At the very moment 

When the Rev. Albert McDugall, D.D. 

Was saying let us pray, 

Ed Breen would be beginning the night, 

And would be saying to Henry Hughes : 

"Another round, Henry, 

Bourbon for me." 

You, Rev. Albert McDugall, D.D. 

Lived to a ripe age. 

You lived to marry a second wife. 

And you, Ed Breen, died in the thirties. 

But whether it be better to have ptomaine poisoning 

From eating cold chicken, 

Or to drug yourself to death with bourbon 

I will ask the moon. 

[186I 



THE CHURCH AND THE HOTEL 

For there Is the moon 

Like a German silver watch 

Under a grimy show case. 

I think it hangs as much over the hotel 

As over the church. 



[187] 



SUSIE 

Where did you go, pale Susie, after the day 
You left the service of the boarding house ? 
The night before we made carouse 
And danced the time away. 

We boys were in the kitchen and were drinking 
Small beer — you slapped the hands of us 
Who stroked your arms half amorous — 
Where did you go, Vm thinking ? 

Medical students up at Hahnemann 
Hunt women on a Saturday night. 
And sing, tell tales, and verse recite, 
And rush the forbidden can. 

The paltry mistress made you pay for all 
The fault of us, and packed you out of doors 
When you had scrubbed the floors, 
And swept the entrance hall. 

I watched you in your faded cloak and hat 
With canvas bag walk towards the Grove. 
Then something in my fancy hove, 
Laughing I caught you at 
f 188I 



SUSIE 

The doorway of the hotel on the street 

Where I had tracked you round from thirty-first. 
You laughed and cried and called me worst 
Of devils on two feet. 

There I had followed you and seized you when 
You did not care what happened, so 
You fell into my hands, you know — 
'Tis twenty years since then. 

I never saw you after that, nor heard 
In all this city aught of you. 
You vanished like a blot of dew, 
Or ashen hued seed bird. 

I wonder if you wed a red bull-throat 
Who ran a rivet hammer, drove a truck, 
Bore many children or worse luck 
Went where the drift weeds float. . . . 



[1891 



HAVING HIS WAY 

We parted at the Union Station, 

Tom Hall and I, 

Two boys in the early twenties 

Fresh from the quiet of fields, 

And the sleepy silence of village life. 

And we stepped into Adams Street, 

Noisy from trucks and rattling cars, 

And babbling multitudes. 

He with his great invention, 

And I with my translation of Homer, 

And the books of Rousseau and Marx. 

And he went his way 

To sell his great invention. 

And I In the village glory 

Of clothes ill-fitting, timid, sensitive 

And proud, a little learned, so zealous 

For the weal of the world 

Came to your chateau palace near the Drive, 

To you my friend, my queenly cousin, 

For a little visit before I entered 

Upon the city's life. 

[190] 



HAVING HIS WAY 

You looked me over with calm Egyptian eyes, 

And put me at ease with your lovely smile. 

And there was about you the calm of desert air in 

Nevada 
That made me forget myself. 
Yet you began to guide me with subtlest words, 
And to mould me with delicate hands, 
As one might smooth a rumpled collar, 
Or fasten a loosened scarf, 
Or lift to place a strand of hair 
Of one beloved who thrills to the touch. 
Even with closed eyes you saw everything 
Of harmony, or form, or hue. 
There were silver strings in your little ears 
Which caught the tone pictures of sounds. 
And the intonations and sonorities of voices ; 
Which trembled to the barbarities of unmelodic words. 
And there as you saw and heard me, 
(I knew it at once,) 

You took me for your piece of bronze in the rough 
To be made under your hands 
Your triumph, your work, your creation 
In the world where you ruled as queen. 
You would see me as finished art 
Move before admiring eyes 
Where music is and richness. 
And where poverty and struggle 
And sacrifice and failure are forgotten. 

[191] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

That was the cousin you meant me to be. 

And in a few nights 

There v/as an evening dress and fine linen 

And an opera hat and cloak 

Laid out for me in my snow white room, 

And a valet came to help me. 

For we were to see Carmen together — 

You and I in a box. 

You the queen, 

And I a genius from the country 

Of whom the word had gone the rounds : 

A translator of Homer, 

And a dreamer of revolutions, 

Her cousin, you know 1 

I was pale from fear and pride 

As I entered the box with you. 

I felt I was wronging my dreams 

And apostatizing all I had dreamed 

To be in this box with you. 

And a sullen hatred of everything : 

The mass of color, the faint perfumes, 

The lights, the jewels, the dazzling breasts 

Of the queens in the boxes angered me. 

And everyone was smiling, and everyone was leveling 

Opera glasses, sometimes at me, 

A translator of Homer 

And a dreamer of socialism. 

[192] 



HAVING HIS WAY 

And there like a fool I sat and thought 
Of the cold without and the beggar man 
Who stood at your carriage as we alighted. 

And when the music arose at last 

A sort of madness whirled in my brain. 

For what was this Carmen thing 

But subtle wickedness and cruel lust 

And hardest heathenism, 

And delight that seeks its own, 

In a setting of bloody voluptuousness, 

Fiendish caprice and faithlessness, 

In music through which a pagan soul 

Had sensed and voiced it all ? 

Till at least (I almost shrieked at this) 

Don Jose in his amorous madness 

Plunged a knife in the back of the whore he loved 

To the growl of horns and moan of viols. . . . 

And you sat through it all 
Like a firefly on a vine leaf 
Suspiring in all your body. 
And gazing with calm Egyptian eyes. 
Or turning to me as if you would know 
If the poison was In my blood. , . . 
But I was immune : 
Democracy seemed too glorious, 
And the cause of the poor too just, 
o [ 193 ] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And fair sweet love of men and women 

So worth the cost to gain and keep, 

And honest bread too sweet — 

I was immune. . . . 

And I scarcely saw the fair slim girl 

To whom you introduced me. 

And I scarcely heard what you said in the carriage 

About her countless riches. 

And I scarcely heard your words of praise 

That I looked like a prince, 

And that you meant to help me. 

And do by me what your husband would do 

If he were living. 

And lift me along to a place in life 

Where power and riches are. 

And beauty is and music, 

And where struggle and sacrifice are forgotten. 

And when I did not answer you thought 
I sat abashed by your side. 
Instead in my mind were running 
The notes to Queen Mab, 
And bits of Greek. 
I did this to stifle my wrath, 
And to forget the cage you were luring me into, 
And the poison you were offering me. 
And the cause of Truth ! 
And hiding my wrath in a day or two 
[194] 



HAVING HIS WAY 

I left you saying I would return, 
But I never returned. 

Instead I went where the youths were thinking, 

Painting and writing, 

And talking of the revolution. 

And the glorious day to come. 

And I was happy even though 

They sent my great translation back 

As poor and amateurish. 

For the years of youth were long ahead 

There was time to try again. . . . 

Then Margaret's stepmother 
Drove her from home, and she came to the city 
Crying in her loneliness and destitution. 
Suffering from her lame hip. 
And even these were happy days. 
For I loved her for her sorrows, 
I loved her for her lameness. 
It was all transfigured through my love 
For democracy and sacrifice. 
And the sweetness of honest bread. 
And it was like taking the sacrament, our marriage. 
And there in our Httle flat far out 
On Robey Street I toiled at writing 
While she went about so lame. 
Trying to keep the house for me, 
[i9Sl 



HAVING HIS WAY 

You see it comes to this, dear queen : 

Can a man or woman alive escape 

The granite's edges or ditch's mire, 

The thorny thickets or marsh's gas, 

Or the traps one thinks would never be set 

Except for the fox or wolf ? . . . 

And here is Margaret down with a cough 

Never to rise from her bed again. 

And I sit by at my task of jokes, 

And I stop to read your letter again, 

And wonder why life has never caught you. 

And why you are laughing there in Rome 

Where you dine with happy friends ; 

Or tramp the thickets around the ruins 

Of the Baths of Caracalla — 

I see the platforms and dizzy arches 

Under a sky of Italy. 

It's cloudy here and the elevated 

Rattles and roars beneath my window. 

You're picking flowers while it's winter here. 

I read these things in your letter and wonder 

Is the asp at your breast in spite of laughter ^ 

Or when is the asp to sting you ^ 



197 1 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And to clear away the disorders 
Which piled about her constantly 
And were never cleared away. . . . 

And is it not strange that to-day, 

After the lapse of ten years 

These two things happen within an hour ? 

Your letter from Rome arrived — 

For though I scorned your life and love, 

And went my way, 

You write me still it seems, 

Not to wound my fallen state. 

Nor to show me what my life had been 

If I had heeded you. 

But just in the continuous sunshine 

Of noble friendship to show me 

I am sometimes in your thought. 

And scarcely had your letter come 

When Tom Hall crept up the creaking stairs 

Dragging his feet with the help of a cane — 

He is rich and came to help me. 

And Tom Hall had his way as well : 

He hated marriage and went the rounds, 

Wherever a pretty face allured. 

And now he is sick and dragging his feet. 

And here am I at a writing desk : 

I'm cap and bells for the Daily Globe 

And my grind is a column a day. 

[196] 



THE ASP 

As the train rushed on 

The days of our youth swept through me, 

As if they were brought to life by a sort of friction. 

I thought of how madly you laughed 

When we played at blindman's buff with the Miller 

girls ; 
And of the May baskets we made together, 
And hung as we rang the bell and ran. 
And of our games in the first spring days 
When we stole from house to house. 
And the children were shouting 
And the April moon was new. 
And the smell of burning leaves 
And the first tulips filled us with such ecstasy. 
We laughed, we shouted, we leaped for joy. 
We ran like mad through the rooms. 
And we went to bed at last 
Laughing and gasping, 
And lay looking at the moon through the leafless 

boughs, 
And fell to sleep with joyous hearts, 
Thinking of to-morrow. 
And the days and days to come for play, 
And the summer to come, 

[ 198 ] 



THE ASP 

And all the mad raptures of school at an end, 

And no death, and no end 

Of the love of father and mother, 

And the home we loved. 

And here It was spring again — 
But such a spring ! 
At the end of such years and years 
And births and births and spheres and spheres of life, 
Each like a life or a world of its own 
With its friends, its own completeness, its rounded end. 
And back of them all 
Our old home forgotten. 
Our father and mother gone, 
And back of this spring that ended world of ours 
Wherein we parted 
Grown misty too ! 
And as the train rushed on 
And the hour of meeting you neared 
I was thrilled with gladness, thrilled with fear. 
And now the station was Herkimer, 
And now it was Amsterdam, 
And now it was Albany, 
And then Poughkeepsie on the Hudson. 
And I looked from the car to the passing scene. 
And back to the car again. 
Or I turned in my seat 
Or took up my book and laid it down, 

[199] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Or fastened my bag for the hundredth time, 

Or straightened my cloak on the seat, 

And waited and waited. 

For I had a story to" tell you 

That I could not wait to tell. 

I was traveling a thousand miles to tell you, 

And to get your advice, to have your solace. 

To look in your eyes again, 

And to feel in spite of springs that were gone. 

And our old home, and father and mother gone 

There was an arm in the world for me to lean on. 

And the train rushed on 
Bringing me nearer to you. 
And the tears welled up to my eyes 
As I wondered why life had mangled me so : 
Why the man I loved at first and hated afterward 
Had died that tragic death. 
Leaving me with memories of that love, 
And such agony for that hate. 
And why as a sort of Empress Eugenia 
The world turned on me when I fell, 
And the little power I had departed. 
And why in spite of my aspiration 
I had run into such disgust. 
Such overthrow of my work, 
Such undoing of myself. 
Such spiritual wreck and shame ! 
[ 200] 



THE ASP 

And to think of what had done it : 

My search for love, my struggle for excellence — 

These things alone ! 

I had married this second man for love, 

And because I believed in him 

As a man of power, a man of thought, 

A man who loved me. 

And hoping through him to retrieve my life 

From the smut of the man I married first. 

But I found my very soul deceived : 

He was just a violent visionary, 

A frothing fool, 

A spendthrift, coward, hedonist. 

And there I was tied to him. 

And carrying his child while finding him out. 

So I used to stand with my face to the wall 

And choke my mouth with a handkerchief 

To keep from crying out. 

For I knew if a whimper passed my lips 

I should fall and roll on the floor with madness, 

And beat my head on the floor. 

So when the train rolled into the station 
A sickness, a weakness came over me. 
I had spent myself in expectation. 
And now that I was about to see you, 
The thought of the vainness of seeing you, 
And the thought that you could not help me, 
[201 ] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Though I had traveled these thousand miles, 

Made me wish to fly, to hide. 

So I stepped from the train in a kind of daze. 

And scarcely felt your kiss. 

It seemed relaxed, so faint. 

And your voice was weak. 

And your eyes were dim and dry. 

And there in the cab as we drove to the Park 

I was still in a daze 

Talking of May baskets 

And blindman's buff, 

And laughing, for one always laughs 

When the moment is worst. 

And so it was I did not really see you. 

But when we began to walk 

Things about you began to limn themselves : 

Your shoulders seemed a little bent. 

There were streaks of snow on your temples. 

And you were quiet with the terrible quietness 

Of understanding of life. 

And the old wit I knew. 

And the glad defiance of fate, 

And the light in your eyes. 

And the musical laugh 

All were gone. 

Perhaps the daily grind of Cap and Bells 

Had sapped you, dear. 

[ 202 ] 



THE ASP 

But when I looked at your hand on your cane 

And saw how white and slim it was, 

And how it trembled, I knew 

You were not the giant man of old. 

Though you said you were gaining strength again, 

And I could lean on your arm. 

Well, then I told you all : 
How my search for love had fooled me again ; 
And how this beast had wronged and robbed me ; 
And how he stood in his paranoiac rages. 
And compared himself to Christ. 
But when I began to speak of the child, 
What a darling girl she was. 
You sank in a seat and said : "No more — 
I didn't think I was weak as this — 
You mustn't tell me another thing, 
Not now, not just now." 
Then I saw, what Time had done. 
And I saw that you could not help me. 
And the next day and the next day. 
When I did not see you, 

And weeks passed by and I scarcely saw you, 
And I scarcely saw you again. 
Though I had come a thousand miles 
To lean on your arm, 

It grew in my mind that you despised me, 
Or that you were indifferent to my lot, 
[203] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Or at least that I was a wounded thing 

You could not bear to see. 

Till at last, though I knew 

That my way was clear : there was nothing to do 

But to fly with my child, 

And leave him forever. 

And endure great loneliness forever, if need be, 

And whatever shame there was, 

For the sake of my soul's honor, 

Which only myself could save, 

And you could save not at all. 

Though I knew, I say, that my way was clear, 

And I needed your help not at all, 

Still in a kind of madness 

I began to reproach you for not helping me, 

And for abandoning me to my fate. . 

As a sick child will cry and blame its mother 

When it is not healed at once. 

And that was the mood he found me in 
When he came with a smile and honey words. 
Well, I fell in his arms, and here I am 
Plunged up to the mouth in spiritual muck, 
And what life is left for me now ? 
How can I go on with life .? 
For he hates me now as a humbled thing. 
He has broken my pride and he hates me now. 
And he roars and curses about the house, 
[204] 



THE ASP 

And yells at our little girl when she cries, 

And stands with his hands outstretched and says 

That his fate is worse than Christ's. 

And I tremble and rustle around like a fallen leaf, 

And neither laugh nor cry nor return him a word. 

For you know there's a spring, 

And you know there's a fire, 

To burn dead leaves. 

And after the ashes 

There's a spirit given a chance ! 



[205] 



THE FAMILY 

We were three larks in the same nest. 
All spring the wind blew from the west. 
We chirped beneath the enshadowing wheat, 
It grew to green, it grew to gold. 
Our mother's voice was piercing sweet 
To see how strong we were and bold — 
How palpitant of wing. 

We knew our father not, alas ! 
A hunter slew him while the grass 
Was fresh beneath the April rain. 
And ere I had the strength to fly 
Our brother sang a farewell strain 
And soared into the empty sky. 
And then our sister knew the fear 
And hunger of a serpent's eye. 
And our sweet mother, lone and drear, 
Fled far afield and left me here 
To nurse my heart and sing. 



[ 206 ] 



THE SUBWAY 

There was the white face of Fear, 

And the solemn face of Duty, 

And the face of self looking in the mirror. 

But there were voices calling from vernal hilltops, 

And silver spirits by moonlit gardens calling, 

And voices of no sound from far horizons calling, 

But even if there be penitence for living 

And thought and tears for the past 

And even shame and even hunger ; 

And if there be nothing gained at the last in living, 

And much to pay for the madness of briefest bliss ; 

And if there be nothing in life, and life be nothing 

So that to nail one's self to the cross is nothing lost 

Is Death not even less ? 

These were the voices whereto we tore our flower 
Petal by petal apart and scattered it, 
And paused and paltered. 

But lest the whispers grow louder. 
And the eyebrows arch to a fiercer scorn, 
You fled away to France and left me 
With only a poor half uttered farewell, 

[207] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

A scrawl put off to the last, then written 
As with shut eyes, swift nervous hands : 
As one might wait for the heroic thought 
To take his poison — wait in vain, and then 
Cowardly gulp it down and reel to death. 
I could not hate you for the pain of hate, 
And could not love you who had hid yourself, 
Belied yourself behind this scrawl. 
I could only sit half-numb, 
And drift in thought. 

And afterwards it wasn't so much to be alone. 

Nor to dream of the days that were done, 

Save as it deepened the surge in my heart. 

Or strengthened the ebb of my soul for thought 

Of your soul drawn away from me. 

So needlessly drawn it seemed. 

And it's the music that deepens and changes, — 

For as your soul adds strings to its strings 

There are fingers to play — it almost seems 

There are fingers about us that watch and wait 

For a soul that's adding strings to its harp 

To play them when they're strung. 

And so it's the music that deepens and changes 

That kills you at last I think. 

Well, I had a dream one night 
That a dead man well could dream : 
[208I 



THE SUBWAY 

They had buried me In Rosehill. 

And after twenty years from France they brought you 

And put you just across the walk from me 

Where we slept while the crowding city grew 

To a vast six millions, and they were building 

A subway to Lake Forest. 

And we were forgotten of everyone, ' 

And almost our family names were lost. 

And our love you fled from all forgotten, 

And everything we said, or thought, or felt forgotten 

With the whispers of boys and girls 

In a temple's shadow in Babylon. 

Well, to pursue, it's a day in March 
When the colors are brilliantly white and blue ; 
And it's cold except for Poles and Italians 
Who dig with spades and cut with picks. 
And some of these fellows are digging us up, 
We lie in the way of the subway, you know. 
And they dump our bones in a careless heap, 
The ribs of me by the ribs of you, 
My skull lies ignorant by your skull. 
And behold our poor arms are entwined. 
For death you know is a mocker of Life. 
And there we lie like stocks and stones. 
And where is our love and where is your fear ? 
And a young Pole pushes our bones together 
With a lusty shove of his heavy shoe, 
p [ 209 ] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And he says to another : ''You saw that girl 
I was dancing with last night ? 
Well, I don't think I'm the only one. 
And besides she bothers me most to death. 
And as soon as this subway job is over, 
Which will be in a year, or year and a half, 
Fm going to beat it back to Poland." 
Then the other beginning to shovel muttered 
"1976." 



[210] 



THE RADICAL'S MESSAGE 

To the archangels and the fiery seed 

Of mad Prometheus, fighting gods for men. 

And heaven for earth, this greeting : 

I led you once, I taught you, am the sire 

Of hosts of you, but fellow to you all. 

And when I fell, was chained upon this bed 

By adamantine sickness, then I lay 

And had you in my thought hour after hour, 

Day after day, and saw you in dreams by night 

Still fighting, bleeding, caring for the fallen, 

Or objurgating heaven for the curse 

It sheds on men, or arming for the fray 

With steel of resisting thought; and so the sense 

Of my responsibility has weighed 

Upon me as my night has deftly dawned 

To something clearer than the soul you knew, 

Who led you once, with breath of iron horns. 

Called to you : Charge ! there is the trench of greed ! 

Avenge the poor ! bring justice ! purge the state 

Of fraud ! And so I lay and thought of you 

Still guarding the old lines, fighting the old fights, 

While I was changed, was not your leader now. 

Cared no more for your battles, save as strife 

[211] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

That leads up higher, for upon my wall 
I woke to see these words : He only wins 
His freedom and existence who each day 
Conquers them newly. How can I tell you 
What has come over me ? 

You walk through galleries, 
Devour the pictures in the different rooms, 
Then gaze about you where you stand at last 
Amid supernal canvases of light. 
Try to recall the pictures you have studied, 
What you have seen has helped you to perceive 
The final beauties, but is blurred in mind, 
It has been lived, has lost its vital power, 
Is not the sovereign moment. 

Climb a mountain 
The whole day through, and at the time of stars 
Stand on a peak and search infinity ! 
You have forgot the valleys, save perhaps 
The torment of the flies of which you're freed 
In these cool heights. 

So age cannot recall 
The thrill and intimate complexities 
That made the thought of youth. A sickness comes : 
One has been metamorphosed, cannot live 
The old emotions, habits, old delights. 

[212] 



THE RADICAL'S MESSAGE 

And as for that we change each day and all 
Our yesterdays are chrysalises whence 
We crawled to what we are. In short, archangels, 
I have become another soul. Now listen : 

I have seen things I cannot tell you of. 

I have gained understandings past my power 

To give you clearly ; yet upon me rests 

The teasing call to tell you, here I lie 

Revolving this new task of leadership. 

How shall I make you see I have not failed you ? 

Not really played a treasonous soul to you } 

Not scorned the cause I gave you, kept you in ? 

Or damned you for, or made you suffer for ? 

I railed at heaven, I instructed you 

To rail as well. How can you understand 

I now accept the fate ^ Will you despise me 

For saying this 1 Or will you say disease 

Has weakened me, cooled off the fire of soul 

And damped my courage ? Then go on your way 

To find a worthier leader ? 

So to doubt 
I taught you once, but now my mind believes. 
And to deny the order of the world 
I gave you words, now I affirm the plan. 
To fight against the gods in man's behalf, 
I made my leadership. Now I perceive 
[213] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

The cause of gods and men made one. You see 
It is not individual gain that counts 
In these external benefits of freedom 
And satisfaction of material wants, 
That counts so much, I say, as inner chains 
Struck from the wrists, and inner scales peeled off 
From inner eyes. I grant the human cause. 
And say this, — Can I make you understand .? 
To give you proof my heart is with you yet 
Let me reveal my sacrifice. 

Suppose 
YouVe found a truth that others knew before you, 
Seen, let us say, the cat, as single taxers 
Are wont to say ? You hunt up some adherent 
Who's labored with you, tell him, "Tm convinced, 
I see the cat at last." You want to share 
Your joy with some one, want his dragging hope 
To hear you have arrived. And so with me 
I hungered to communicate my vision 
To some one who had seen it, and who knew 
Its meaning, what it meant to me. 

But then 
You archangels and hot Promethean seed 
Each time I thought of making the confession 
To some delighted spirit, ranged yourselves 
In thought around my sick bed, with contempt, 
[214] 



THE RADICAL^S MESSAGE 

Or pained compassion written on your brows, 

And words like these : He has deserted us, 

He has surrendered, cringed before the gods. 

And so my sacrifice is this : You'll be 

The first to know my second birth, you can 

In such case never charge it up to fear, 

Or weakness, shrunken nerves, or spirit 

That lost the human touch through the effects 

Of some delirium. What mind so clear. 

Or will so strong to die with this denial 

For your sakes ? For it may be best for you 

To live the rebel out of you. And if 

You thought — at least I fear it — if you thought 

I had gone over to the hosts you hate. 

As you are now, through weakness, made my peace 

With heaven, as you'd call it, just to save 

My wretched self, you'd have a mad regret, 

A fine disgust to work through, added labor 

To all you must achieve. That's why I die, 

And seal this message. Break it on the day 

They make me ashes 1 



[215] 



BOMBYX 

Sealed In a cocoon-cradle of white silk, 

Locked fast in sleep ; 

Or bound for years as a chrysalid, while the neap 

Creative tides rise to the spring and slough 

The torn strands and the golden pupa stuff, 

You tear wings free for the connubial flight — 

Break suddenly the embryo trance, drift off. 

Whole troops of you in a looped and colorful clutter 

Wobbling like leaves in a fresh wind's delight. 

And over clover meadows in a flutter, 

Or through sweet scented hollows, 

You seek the expectant mate, 

And the mad moment where life turns to death, 

And both become one essence and one breath, 

One undivided fate. 

Together you fly 

Drunken with life, yet mad to die. 
Since soul achievement is death after all. 
All rivals for the wedding festival. 
Yet only one of you can win the prize ; 
The rest shall sink exhausted in defeat, 
While the triumphant bridegroom dies 
In his own rapture and creative fire — 
All perish in the flame of their desire. 

[216] 



BOMBYX 

For none of you is given strength to live 

Beyond the quest, or the hymeneal kiss ; 

The disappointed perish 

One wins his joy, but may not keep or cherish 

The moment which contains it, sudden doom 

Falls on the winner of his bliss 

And on the wings that quiver their frustration. 

Bombyi ! to have more life than is enough 

To win the mate, achieve the one success, 

And on that life to mount and half survey 

The universe — 

Build cities with it, letter precious scrolls, 

Plan for the race to be and have the vision 

To labor for of ages half elysian, 

Is that a benediction or a curse ? 

Is it a good or evil to have strength 

To soar beyond the sun, or planets even 

If none of us at length 

Reach heaven ? 

If none of our infatuate souls 

Sip the bright fire of God ? 

If it be all a flying in a dream, 

A lying down at last in deeper night, 

To enrich the prodigal sod, 

To breed new wings 

For the same flight ? 



THE APOLOGY OF DEMETRIUS 

Hyacinthus, your money, the idol you ordered is 
finished. 

May the grace of Diana be with you in strength un- 
diminished. 

Behold how the breast of it glitters, as if it were 

wrought in with stipples. 
The Ephesian goddess is nature and these are her 

bountiful nipples. 

So then do I fear for my trade ^ No, never 1 It's 

past my conceiving. 
There'll be work for the artist while gods change to 

win our believing. 

Come on then, you babblers and madmen from Jewry 

and tell us and show us — 
Yes, come with your tumult the like of which never 

was known in Corinth or Troas. 

They crowd in the markets and temples and gabble a 

story that palters. 
Well, I whistle and hammer the silver, a maker of 

statues and altars. 

[218I 



THE APOLOGY OF DEMETRIUS 

Who says I am wroth lest in Samothrace, Lystra and 

Delos 
The craft of the maker of images fail through the 

speech of these fellows ? 

And the temple of Artemis perish ? Oh, well, however 

they hate us 
Can they burn it as once it was burned by the wretch 

Herostratus ? 

But we built it again and carved it all newly in beauty 

and wonder — 
Destroy it, oh man, who was crazed by lightning and 

roaring of thunder ! 

Oh virgin Diana, if virgin, what virgin whose altar is 

older ! 
If matron what breasts hang with milk for the eyes of 

her temples' beholder ! 

For centuries gone — when these Jews prayed to ser- 
pents of bronze and calves that were golden 

In Ephesus, Arcady, Athens, our reverent love was 
beholden 

To the goddess of prophecy, music, the lyre, of light, 
i inspiration, 

Who guarded and watches the city and lays the foun- 
dation 

[219]* 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Of nations and laws. What works we have done, yea 

still we would heed her — 
And look at your barbarous ark in your temple of jewels 

and cedar ! 

What is our pollution, our idols, our sacrificed things 

which are strangled ? 
I ask you already divided in turbulent parties who 

wrangled 

Concerning salvation of God to the faith of the uncir- 

cumcision 
In Cyprus and Paphos, where poets of love keep the 

Hellenic vision. 

I am filled with my loathing ! Oh keep me a Greek 

though you make me a whoreson, 
When the worship of beauty is dead you may pare off 

my foreskin. 

When the symbol is dead which I mould to Diana our 

goddess 
ril retire to the country of Nod, no matter where Nod 

is. 

It will live when your temples are built, if any are 

builded. 
And Jesus in silver is nailed on a cross which is gilded. 

[ 220] 



THE APOLOGY OF DEMETRIUS 

And touching this thing is it different to worship a 

man or abstraction ? 
Or an idol of silver or stone ? — go talk to your spirit's 

distraction ! 

Areopagus listened to Paul, I am told, for Athens is 
spending 

Her time, as of old, in weighing new things and at- 
tending. 

They heard him in silence! Let his arguments pass 
uncorrected — 

Why, Plato had told us of Er from the dead resur- 
rected ! 

Now, mark me! For showing the wisdom, compas- 
sion of poets and sages 

That silence like lightning will aureole Paul to the end 
of the ages. 

Oh Athens, who set up that shrine, do you think it was 

just superstition 
Which carved for all passers to see that profoundest 

inscription : 

To the unknown God ? Do you think it was cowardice 

even ? 
Make altars and gods as you will, unknown is the 

planeted heaven. 

[ 221 ] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And we who are richest in gods — have exhausted all 

thought in creating 
Both symbols and shapes for interpreted loving and 

hating 

Still sense the Unknown, though in blindness, in love 

as in duty 
Would worship it most — the Unknown is the ultimate 

beauty. 

Yes, Athens who set up the altar and chiseled the wor- 
shipful letters 

To the Unknown God — what ignorance fastened with 
fetters 

Did you loosen, oh wonder of Tarsus, how help their 

unknowing 
Who told them he dwelt not in temples, nor needed 

the flowing 

Of prayers from men's hearts — the Giver of life and 

of all things, and seeing 
He is lord of the heavens, in whom we are living and 

having our being. 

So quoting our poet who centuries since with the mon- 
arch Gonatas 

Lived and wrote the Phaenomena, known to the 
Greeks as Aratus. 

[ 222 ] 



THE APOLOGY OF DEMETRIUS 

And yet Hyacinthus I pity this Paul for profoundest 

compassion 
Of Jesus before him. This sky and this earth I can 

fashion 

Through mystical wonder or fear to the Sphinx or the 

Minotaur dreaded. 
There's Persephone dying and rising, and Cerberus the 

dog many-headed. 

We have thought it all through ! Yet I say if a virtue 

Elysian 
Resides in the doctrine Til leave off the goddess 

Ephesian; 

Sell my tools, shut my shop, worship God in a way 

that is safer, 
Make the Unknown the known ! Have they shown 

you a magical wafer ? 



[223] 



A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS 

Act One 

There was slight rain that afternoon, 
And tempest in the apple trees ; 
But as the sun went down the moon 
Sailed swiftly to a western breeze. 

Day kindled something in your blood, 
Your fancies roved with dove and hawk ; 
There was no promise in your mood 
Nor soft assurance in your talk. 

I felt you might mislead my trust 
And slight a love too surely yours ; 
You were so wild, I felt you must 
Be kindred to the woods and moors. 

But when we passed the orchard through 
The dusk had crept into the sky ; 
Your eyes betrayed a dream which grew 
Until I thought I heard you sigh. 

You were an ardent star that waited 
For night to be yourself and show 
[224] 



A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS 

How surely afternoon had fated 
A love that nothing could forego. 

Act Two 

The sky was full of clouds at rest 
Like dolphins in a waste of blue. 
We tramped along a country road 
Into the village, I and you. 

The dogwood bloomed along the fences. 
We heard the songs of larks and thrushes. 
The country door-yards teemed with hues 
Of lilac trees and almond bushes. 

The long blaze of the setting sun 
Shone in your eyes and analyzed 
Their little rifts of gray and brown, 
And left your secret undisguised. 

And I was silent thinking over 
The old threads raveled from your heart. 
I hear you clearer now than then : 
"How can we part ? How can we part ?" 

Act Three 

Shadows upon the wall 

And the ghost of a past on the floor, 

Here where the hours made carnival 

In the days that are no more. 

Q [ 225 ] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And the chamber Is cold and bare, 
And the wax from the taper drips ; 
But I bury my face in your hair, 
And swoon at the touch of your lips. 

We went from the house to the wood, 
But never a word we spoke ; 
And an eerie wind like our mood 
Rustled the leaves of the oak. 

Dead leaves, tremulous, crisp. 
That breathed a forgotten tune ; 
A cloud the shape of a wisp 
Blotted the soaring moon. 

Silent we walked the path. 
And then the wild farewell ; 
I saw your form like a wraith 
Fade in the forest's dell. 

If joy would never depart. 

If we could but still the pain — 

Dear, I awoke with a pang in my heart 

And heard the sound of the rain. 

Act Four 

Michigan Avenue streams with people — 
Ten years alter the avenue. 
It's April again, and there are dolphin 
Clouds at rest in a waste of blue. 
[226] 



A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS 

A girl goes by with a spray of lilacs 
Pinned at her breast, and quick as thought 
Country fences, dogwood blossoms 
Over the granite scene are wrought. 

You come in my mind ! It's spoiled by the glimpse 
Of a monster diamond that glints and glows ; 
A black-eyed Gadarene goes past 
Insolent, heavy, and hooked of nose. 

I scan his face that runs with fat, 
And the fleshly sag of his under lip ; 
Then back to the diamond again, the hand 
Holds your arm with a master grip ! 



[227] 



THEODORE DREISER 

Jack o' Lantern tall shouldered, 

One eye set higher than the other, 

Mouth cut like a scallop in a pie, 

Aslant showing powerful teeth. 

Swaying above the heads of others. 

Jubilant with fixed eyes, scarcely sparkling. 

Moving about rhythmically, exploding in laughter. 

Touching fingers together back and forth. 

Or toying with a handkerchief. 

And the eyes burn like a flame at the end of a funnel. 

And the ruddy face glows like a pumpkin 

On Halloween ! 

Or else a gargoyle of bronze 
Turning suddenly to life 
And slipping suddenly down corners of stone 
To eat you : 

Full of questions, objections. 
Distinctions, instances. 
Contemptuous, ironical, remote. 
Cloudy, irreverent, ferocious, 
Fearless, grim, compassionate, yet hateful, 
[228I 



THEODORE DREISER 

Old, yet young, wise but virginal. 

To whom everything is new and strange : 

Whence he stares and wonders. 

Laughs, mocks, curses. 

Disordered, yet with a passion for order 

And classification — hence the habitual 

Folding into squares of a handkerchief. 

Or else a well cultivated and fruitful valley, 

But behind it unexplored fastnesses, 

Gorges, precipices, and heights 

Over which thunder clouds hang, 

From which lightning falls. 

Stirring up terrible shapes of prey 

That slink about in the blackness. 

The silence of him is terrifying 

As if you sat before the sphinx. 

The look of his eyes makes tubes of the air 

Through which you are magnified and analyzed. 

He needs nothing of you and wants nothing. 

He is alone, but content. 

Self-mastered and beyond friendship, 

You could not hurt him. 

If he would allow himself to have a friend 

He could part from that friend forever 

And in a moment be lost in wonder 

Staring at a carved rooster on a doorstep, 

Or at an Italian woman 

[229] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Giving suck to a child 

On a seat in Washington Square. 

Soul enwrapped demi-urge 
Walking the earth, 
Stalking Life ! 



[230] 



JOHN COWPER POWYS 

Astronomer and biologist 

And chemical analyst and microscopist, 

Observer of men's involuted shells 

Where they conceal their hate and even their love 

Under insipid ooze or nacreous stuff. 

Tracer of criss-cross steps made when great hells 

Kept lime as soft as wax 

Which thereupon took the imprint of the air 

From gnat-like wings of joy or shadowy care. 

He makes hard secrets stand in the cul de sac's 

Entrance and face him till he lays all bare 

That eyes hold or heart of blood contains, 

And curious traits in diverse curious brains, 

And starved desires in hearts and hopes forgot 

Under the sifting ashes of one's lot. 

X-ray photographer who flashes 
What's in you out of you with sudden crashes 
Of wit or oratory in a flood. 

He samples and tests the book's, also your blood. 
Shows what you are and whence you came. 
And who your kindred are, and what your flame 
In heat and color is. Poet and wag, 
[231] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Prophet, magician taking from a bag 

Eggs, rabbits, silver globes ; the old engram ! 

Scoffer with reverence, visioned, quick to damn, 

Yet laugh at, looking keenly through the sham. 

Confessing his own sins, devoid of shame. 

He knows himself and laughs, 

Or blames himself as he would others blame. 

A naughty boy who kicks away the staff 

Which poor decrepits walk by, nearly blind, 

Then hurrying up with varied thought to find 

Medicinal clay with which dim eyes to heal. 

What is the human secret but Proteus' ? 
And who can catch the old man but his kind ? . 
He was Poseidon's herdsman, knew the streams 
Of early being, sea-filled ponds and sluices. 
Where life took birth through elemental dreams. 
And Proteus glanced with lightning and divined 
The cause of Bacchus' madness. But at noon 
He counted his sea-calves and ocean-sheep 
On Carpathos where waters made a tune 
Following the Orphic sun out of the deep — 
Then in his cave he hid him, turned to sleep. . . 

So runs our life to change ! and who can catch 
The Protean thought must watch, 
And be adept at wrestling, in the chase. 
And know the god whatever be his face, 
[232] 



JOHN COWPER POWYS 

Through roar of water where the porpoises 
And extravagant dolphins play, in silences 
Of noon or midnight. So John Cowper Powys 
You stand before us gesturing, shoulder bent 
A little like King Richard, frizzed of hair, 
Rolling your eye for secrets, for the word. 
The thresher of your mind is eloquent 
With hulls and flakes of words, until at last 
The kernel itself pops out, not long deferred. . - 

Here Is our wrestler then, 

Hunter of secrets of creative souls. 

Eluded he may be, he tries again. 

His hand sHps clutching at the Irlsed shoals 

Of rapturous thought. And at times his eyes 

Are blinded by a light, or a disguise. 

But finally both eye and hand 

Obey the Infallible senses' brave command — 

He catches Proteus then, and with a shout. 

The god shouts too, and we who watch the bout 

Join In the panic of their merriment 1 



233 



NEW YEAR'S DAY 

She was a woman who even as a child 

Hungered for gifts with hunger passionate 

And in her childhood made a hard fate 

For a father who had failed and who was wild 

With a kind of laughing despair, 

That comes of having failed. 

She had plain dresses, only a little strand 

Of coral beads, and ribbons for her hair 

Bestowed by grandmama. And on her hand 

A ring of beads that maddened her and paled 

Beside the gold rings other girls could show. 

So she grew up out of this woe 

Of wanting and not having things. 

And round this nucleus of desire 

Her nature wound itself into a spire, 

As a vine climbs up and clings 

Till it becomes the tree ; 

So she became all fire 

For the world's glittering glory. 

Then in the process of her being's story 
She married a man of riches and took over 
Dresses and jewels, houses, with her lover. 
[234] 



NEW YEAR'S DAY 

And learned the ways of Paris and New York, 

And how to sit, or look, or use one's fork. 

And how to speak in French, and how to dress. 

And how to find and use the loveliness 

That gold brings. And she lived where thought is 

white 
With its great longing for the infinite, 
Where pale youths dream and write, 
And starve and lie awake at night ; 
Where sculpture, music and where painting is 
On priceless canvases. 
But none of this saw she 
In feeding her desire with jollity 
In the cafes and in society ; 
Wherever the denials of her youth 
Could be made whole, or leveled up 
With idle splendor or the champagne cup. 
That was her dream of making her life truth, 
Till she devoured her husband like a leman — 
She was at last one of this kind of women. 
Then as a widow she came journeying back 
With trunks and maids upon a New Year's day 
Over her childhood's disappointed track. 

Her father meanwhile had gone on the way 
Which was his at the start. 
His life was like a bruise which does not smart 
Now that it has grown hard. 

[235] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And he was stoical like one who hugs 

His inner self until sensation dies, 

Or dulls his fears or sorrows with strong drugs. 

There was a light of hardness in his eyes 

Through which no one could see his secret pain. 

Failure had made him so — he could explain 

To no one how he had been caught in life ; 

Sometimes It seemed himself, sometimes his wife, 

And he had thought of it so much he lost 

Perspective of himself, therefore he kept 

Great silence, speaking little, even then 

But trivial things. He trod his path and slept, 

And rose to tread the path and slept again. 

He was resolved to pay the bitter cost 

And not cry out — his thinking stood on guard 

To this end chiefly. 

With Impassive heart 
He wrote his daughter on a postal card 
To come, if It should please her, and be home 
On Christmas, if she could, on New Year's day 
If she preferred, but anyway to come. 

If a ghost could patch Its tomb 

With a trowel from time to time, 

If It had a little lime. 

So as to stop the cracks and growing rifts. 

That would be like this man who hated gifts 

[236] 



NEW YEAR'S DAY 

Because he scarce could give them, and had patched 

With hardness where his heart had broken 

In years gone for the holidays when she 

Cried in such ignorance of his poverty. 

Now with walled feelings he could sit unspoken 

Of what he felt, regretted, or had lost — 

He was that kind of ghost. 

So when the daughter came he only had 

Her mother and the dinner, greetings glad, 

And certain pride because her life had matched 

With childhood's hopes — but still he had no gifts 

For Christmas or for New Year's, and the daughter 

Wept when she found it so, — 'twas always so, — 

It made her youthful bitterness alive. 

And so she spilled her water 

Out of a trembling hand at dinner and arose 

And left the table. But with specs on nose 

Self-mastered, not revealing 

What was his feeling, 

The father ate the dinner alone, while mother 

Was comforting the daughter. 

"He might have given me a dollar, a little book, 
A handkerchief, or any other 
Little thing, he always acted so." 
The mother tried to soothe her daughter's woe. 
But while they were together, the father took 
His steps up town and when the two came back 
[237] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

They found him gone and the room growing black 
From falling night. . . . 

But later he came in 
And sat by the fire all silent. This had been 
His New Year's day ! And later his wife came 
And sat across him silent in her blame 
Of him and of his life. 

She said at last: 
"Blanche is heart sick." 

"Well, I am sixty-five," 
He answered her, "and never while I'm alive 
Will I remember Christmas or a New Year's day. 
I'm glad so many of such days are past, 
They have been always this way. We had dinner 
And ourselves for her and she brought herself 
And nothing else. This is the way to win her 
Admiration, yet this thing of giving 
Dollars or books, wins only a little thrill 
Of tickled pride or egotism, still 
I might have done it, just to have the peace 
Of her self-satisfaction." 

Said the wife : 
"You might find happiness in her happiness. 
The only thing you understand in living 

[238] 



NEW YEAR'S DAY 

Is how to stand your misery, one can guess 
The working of your thought." 

Ere she could cease 
The daughter entered like the devil's elf, 
And saw her father bent before the fire. 
And saw the back of his head which spoke to her 
Of hardness, or of something that she hated 
Which moved her pity and her hate at once. 

And then the mother said : "You two are fated 
To be as blind as two cliffs to each other. 
You need I think a spiritual re-birth, 
Something that you could have upon this earth. 
For I can see a book or handkerchief 
Would give one happiness and one relief 
From hardness which is girding in your soul. 
That would be rich return for small outlay, 
God give us all another New Year's day." 



[239] 



PLAYING BLIND 

You used to play at being blind — 
Now you are blind — you used to say : 
"Play I am blind and help me find 
Where the gate opens on the way." 

I laughed at you, we laughed together 
When you were playing blind, your staflF 
My walking cane of varnished leather — 
Now you are blind and still you laugh. 

You sit beneath the reading lamp 
With long lashed eyelids closed and pale 
And make me read you Riley's Tramp, 
And Grimm and many a fairy tale. 

Sometimes I stop — you see I choke 
Before the tale is done by half — 
One's eyes blur from tobacco smoke — 
I cannot laugh now when you laugh. 



240 



I SHALL NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN 

If I could only see you again — 

If I could only see you again ! 

How can it be 

I shall never see you again ? 

For the world has shown it can roll on its way 

And blot you out forever — 

And I shall never see you again ! 

I thrill as one who slips on the edge of a gulf 

When I think I shall never see you again ! 

As a dead leaf is hurtled over the tops of trees ; 

As a dead leaf is dizzily driven through woodland 

valleys 
I am driven and tossed in the storms of living. 
But as the dead leaf escapes the breeze's fingers, 
And sinks till it nestles motionless under a rock 
So in quiet moments I dream 
Of you, 

I dream of all that you were — 
And I shall never see you again ! 

There never was any one like you ! 
There never yet was such joy in a heart, 
R [ 241 ] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Such strength to live whatever the fate, 

Such love to love, 

Such thought to see how life is good, 

Such maternal passion, 

Such breasts eager to nurse child after child — 

And I shall never see you again 1 

Your breasts were made to suckle conquerors, 

Warriors, prophets. 

Invincible souls 

Loving life, and loving death at last. 

And now your breasts are dust, 

You are all dust, 

You are lost save for my memory. 

And this morning I woke 

As a leaf might wake in its sheltered place 

Under the rock 

Stirred by a breath of April. 

And I lived again the last time I saw you — 

The last visit ! 

You were almost ninety then. 

But there was the old zest in your heart 

To do all things and have all things 

Unchanged, as I had known them 

As a boy. 

You gave me the same room, 

Nothing was changed, 

[242] 



I SHALL NEVER SEE YOU AGAIN 

Not a chair, a curtain, a picture. 

And you came up-stairs before it was day 

And lighted a fire in the little stove 

To have the room warm for me to dress in — 

There never was love like yours ! 

And I went down to the kitchen and found you 

Frying batter cakes, and laughing, 

And bringing back my boyhood days 

With the old stories. 

And how you kissed me, and hugged me 

With your withered arms ! 

And then you sat down with me, 

And ate with me as of old. 

And brought out priceless jars of things 

Which you had made and saved for me ! 

The breath of memory stirs me 

Under the rock. 

I must have the madness of life to drive me, 

To toss me 

Into forgetfulness of my loss of you — 

For I shall never see you again ! 



243 1 



ELIZABETH TO MONSIEUR D- 



I pace the rooms and wait for John's return. 
My heart beats all too fast, I feel a pain 
Around my heart, my hands grow cold, I burn 
Through neck and cheeks. And thus I live in vain. 
John comes at last and says, "There is no mail, 
No letter for you." And with whirling brain 
I turn away in silence, growing pale. 
And whisper to myself: to be resigned 
To wretchedness perhaps is to prevail 
O'er wretchedness and win a peace of mind. 
To love you so, to thirst for you, to pay 
For outward calm with inner storms confined, 
To lie awake by night and spend the day 
In restless thoughts, is life too hard to bear. 
I see you in my troubled dreams alway. 
You face me with a grave and haughty air, 
Serene, incensed against me who intrude 
An interest which you have no heart to share. 
Forgive me then my sorrow's servitude. 
To write to you my suffering will ease. 
And fill the aching of my solitude. 
I have gone forth to Nature to find peace : 
[244] 



ELIZABETH TO MONSIEUR D 

The woods are filled with purple lupine now, 
Small yellow asters, phlox, and cramoisies 
Of columbine and roses, vine and bough. 
The wild grape and the cherry haunt the dunes 
With odors sweet as love. To cool my brow 
I walk the heights upon these afternoons 
And watch the blue waste of the sky's descent. 
And yesterday where golden light festoons 
With flickering sorcery the way we went 
'Twixt sprays of beech and sassafras I stole 
Till once again at the hill's top half-spent 
I saw the shore dunes and the waters roll. 
We climbed it once together — it was there 
The Bacchic madness came into your soul 
To take me in your arms. And now I bear 
Your coldness, your reproaches, you who call 
My longing and my spiritual despair 
A mere neurosis, or hysterical 
Outcropping to be conquered. It was wrong 
To take me in your arms, and then when all 
Was not yours then to tell me to be strong. 
And urge your marriage vows now I have thought 
The problem of my love through. I belong 
To you Monsieur ; whatever grief is wrought 
Of body or of soul to satisfy 
The flame is better, and is far less fraught 
With mad regret than it can be to lie 
In restless torture. O my friend withdraw 
[245] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Your friendship from me never lest I die ! 
Yes, I could live and work if I foresaw 
Your friendship mine and letters by your hand 
Arriving in this lonely place to thaw 
The ice around my heart's flame. Understand 
From those I love but little love I need : 
Crumbs from your feast you scarce can countermand, 
And crumbs are all I ask, and just the meed 
Of friendly interest. I abase my pride. 
The strong can suffer silently and bleed 
As long as strength lasts, keep the blood Inside, 
Until one weakens when it spurts and drips. 
And Pride turns Nature, careless now to hide 
The inner bleeding bubbling at the lips. 
I write you this without regret or shame. 
My strength has left me in the blue eclipse 
Of agony. Monsieur, I take the blame. 
If any come, of fanning dangerously 
The spark that brightened once and would be flame — 
Is that not true ^ Or do you say to me : 
"You are no more my pupil, I retrench 
**The memory of things that cease to be, 
"And go my way with teaching young girls French, 
"As I taught you. Two years have passed since then. 
"What is this thought that time has failed to quench ? 
"You who are laureled in the world of men, 
"A genius risen like a morning star, 
"Does not that glory fill you .^" Yet again 

[246] 



ELIZABETH TO MONSIEUR D 

I answer you one's genius burns afar 
In useless splendor if it warm no cheek, 
Make bright no eye, lead on no darkling spar — 
Genius Is love. Is freedom, it must speak, 
Work out its fate from egocentric life ; 
It Is more swift than other feet to seek 
Its ruin with its hope, or take the knife 
More willingly to breast than those who sink 
In Involuted growth. To be your wife 
I do not dream, I only wish to drink 
The cup with you and break the bread with you, 
To feel thereby our lives are one and think 
We are one creed and one communion, new 
In spirit, born anew, that I may have 
An altar for my genius, something true 
And near In flesh to triumph for, or brave 
The world or evil for. Genius is love. 
It cannot bear Itself alone to save; 
It must another rescue, it must prove 
Its growing strength In ministry. Monsieur, 
Bruise not my soul by ignorance hereof. 
My reverend father thinks my thoughts are pure • 
If he should read this ! But If you dismiss 
This letter with a smile and say her cure 
Is the reaction of forbidden bliss, 
It Is most true, but you would not degrade 
My love for you with that analysis, 
And that alone. For surely God who made 
[247 I 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Our souls and bodies so meant we should rise 
Through their desires, and does God pervade 
This glowing mass of life, these starry skies 
With other power ? Now scorn me, if you will. 
The unburdened heart has tamed its agonies. 



248 



MONSIEUR D TO THE PSYCHOANALYST 

In time Til tell you all the dreams Tve had — 

But now — well, let me think I O yes three times 

IVe dreamed a creature with a dragon's head, 

Which was her head as well, for so it seemed, 

Gemmed with her brazen eyes half luminous 

And half opaque, slate colored, lay across 

My breast and hurt my heart, and breathed her breath 

From half-dead, livid overlapping lips 

(As when you crush a snake's head jaws will lie 

Awry and out of plumb) like pestilence 

Right in my nostrils. This interpreted 

Means characters are breaths, and most are bad 

When closely known. Such breath suits well the 

dragon. 
But would not suit her, so you'd think to see 
How fair her face, how seeming fair her soul. 
So let me tell you. 

All my hair is gray. 
My youth is gone, pretense will work no more. 
I'm fifty-seven, yet I cling to youth. 
Because I cling to love, have never known 
Aught but successions of immoderate — what ? 

[249] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Some call it lust — you call it libido. 

Well it is urge, creative fire and drives 

The artist half-soul mad, as I am mad — 

Look how my poor hand trembles, my voice breaks 

No 1 ril go on. I'll tell you all, be done. 

Then if you cannot cure me, there's a balm 

I know myself. 

If I had only loved 
Elizabeth, who wrote me years ago 
Such pleading letters — every man can win 
Some woman's love completely, had she won 
My love as well ! O what a monstrous world 
Where such envenomed fire is, held by Chance 
And shot in blindness. So she felt the flame 
And looked on me, I felt the flame and looked 
Uoon this cockatrice. 

So as I said 
I had been teacher, actor, writer, poet, 
Had seen my face on lithographs, felt warm 
In every capillary for that face 
Which seemed star-guided, noble, to be loved, 
Revered, and thus through self-esteem I bore 
My failures hoping, buoyed by some success 
As the swift years went by. 

But on a day 
When I was forty-five, looked thirty-five, 
[250] 



MONSIEUR D TO THE PSYCHOANALYST 

No gray hairs then, they called me thirty-five, 

My name went round the city, in the press 

They hailed me as a genius, I had played 

Othello to their liking, was yet young 

And promised much, they said. That afternoon 

A woman came to see me in my suite. 

Wonder and admiration in her eyes. 

Her manner halted, as she thumbed a book 

Upon the table, while she told her tale : 

She had won favor as an amateur. 

Could I, the greatest talked of man to-day, 

Show her the way to greatness, might it be 

A modest part could be assigned to her 

When I played mad Othello ? 

I have found 
That when a woman has no business with you 
Her calling speaks the oldest one of all. 
So true to this I acted. We commenced 
And for three months I struggled for the prize. 
Her first play was to make me pity her. 
She told me of her suffering, her youth, 
(She was then thirty-five), her poverty. 
Her labor to learn French. And like a man 
I pitied her and opened up my purse. 
She said, "No 1 No ! this hat and dress will do, 
It brushes well." She would not take a cent. 
I saw her daily for a month before 

[251] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

I won her. Though she gave me hands and Hps — 
There was a fury in her Hps, my heart 
Seemed Hke to stop — I could not win the prize. 
One day she broke in tears : "You seemed so noble, 
So great of mind, are you then like the rest 
Who want a woman's body, nothing else?" 
"I want your love," I said, *'your love for mine, 
I love you, dearest!" faugh, must I repeat 
The gagging words ? So I declared the love 
I felt too deeply, and to prove my love 
I added : "I'll renounce the gift of love, 
My Lady Wonderful, worship you afar. 
You would not have me tortured by your eyes. 
Nor have me see you often, in this case !" 
So I had given love as I had given 
All wealth that I could pour of soul, achievement, 
Name in the world, all pride, all thought of self 
Present or future to this woman, now 
For love's sake I renounced the gift of love. 
And so I left her. Well, she called me back. 
And though I was a fool, and blinded too, 
I saw her thought and won her in an hour. 
So then commenced my madness, for she said 
It could not be again. The blood I tasted 
Could not be drunk. "You love me," she would say, 
"Then bring me not to shame, it will be known 
If we go on. I cannot lose my bread. 
Librarians cannot have their names in doubt 
[252] 



MONSIEUR D TO THE PSYCHOANALYST 

Who serve the public, as I do." So it was 

The madness braced my will, and unrelenting 

I sought her, won her. In a little while 

We were adjusted to habitual love. 

And I was happy save when I was mad. 

For she knew younger men who came to call. 

Or take her to the theatre, with one 

She corresponded. "Let it be," she said, 

"1 must not be in public with you, dear. 

Whose name and greatness in the world would point 

To our relationship, how could it be 

You would be with a woman without station, 

Celebrity or wealth, except for this .? 

These others are a blind." 

I could not solve 
Out of the whirling clouds of passion truth — 
My days were tortured, in the dreams of sleep 
I saw this dragon head I told you of. 
And so through heavy venery, and dread. 
And anger, doubt, faith, love and much of hate, 
I took to drink. 

So drinking with her once, 
For she could drink me blind, I turned and said : 
*'You say I am the first, I think you lie." 
She wailed a flood of tears. A hundred eyes 
Turned on us in the cafe where we sat. 

[253I 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

We left and walked the park. I goaded her, 
Pried out the secret. Why, at twenty-three 
She had become the mistress of a man. 
It ended just six months before she came 
To see me in my suite. 

Now here I was : 
To hold on to myself I had to hold 
This woman, win her wholly, crush her soul, 
Destroy her so she would no longer be 
My heart's desire. For I had given all. 
And I could see she valued it the less 
As time went on. My name, what was it now ? 
My art, what was it now ? She even hinted 
I could not act Othello. There was nothing 
I could do more to keep her, hold her love, 
Her admiration. O how good esteem 
Seems to a man who forfeits it to her 
Whose body he can have, who cannot have 
That sympathy whereby a man is nerved 
To daily work and living. What is Art ^ 
No picture would be painted, poem sung 
Save for the thought that woman close at hand, 
Or somewhere in the world yet to be found 
By reason of the picture or the poem, 
Will see and love you for it. 

Let me say 
In passing, and dismiss it, I began 
[254I 



MONSIEUR D TO THE PSYCHOANALYST 

With little sums until I gave her much. 
There's matter of more moment. 

I confess, 
In spite of my licentious life, the creed 
One sees among the artists, where I've lived. 
To strong belief in woman's virtue, yes, 
In spite of lip avowal of the faith 
Of love called free, I have not quite believed it. 
But it was in her soul. She sucked that milk, 
A child upon her mother's breast, she said — 
It all came out at last from many talks, 
And then, just then, I thought I saw foreshadowed 
A social change upon the things of sex ; 
We read together Ann Veronica, 
And Bernard Shaw, and laughed and said, at last 
We see each other clearly. We have found 
A footing for our life. I slept at last. 
The dragon vanished from my dreams. I waked 
A song upon my lips, left drink alone. 
Could face my image in the looking-glass, 
And find restored a noble quality, 
A strength and genius. 

But if love be free 
And if you love though only for an hour 
Why not the cup of love ^ Her former friend 
Piqued to an interest by my love for her 
[2SSl 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Came back to see If he had overlooked 
A beauty he would have. Well, she confessed 
Their night together. It was at the time 
My poor canzones which sang our stormy love 
Had just been finished. Every artist fool 
Writes sonnets or canzones once in his life. 
And so I had to add a verse to tell 
Her faithlessness — or was it faithlessness ? 
Since she declared she loved me, did not love 
This older friend. But if she did not love him 
What was this act I She called it just a trial 
Of our love which had stood the test, O God 
Such mazes for my soul 1 

Flushed then with wrath 
And drink I beat her cruelly. She stood 
With scarce a cry of pain and let me strike, 
And said if I considered it was just 
To beat her so, she wished to bear the pain. 
Then with a cry I ceased. We fell asleep 
Stretched on the bed together. When we woke 
She kissed me her forgiveness. I returned 
The kiss, ah me ! 

So now the story turns. 
There was a woman critic who pursued 
My work with hateful words. Before I knew 
The cockatrice I found it best to fold 
[2S6] 



MONSIEUR D TO THE PSYCHOANALYST 

This critic's column under, never read. 

And in a day or two from that on which 

I beat my mistress, what should I behold ? — 

A letter from her — she had left the town 

Without my knowing, she was visiting 

This critic enemy at her summer home. 

And in this mail I found my poor canzones 

Returned to me, and in the letter this : 

"My friend says for some reason you would try 

To compromise me by this wretched verse, 

So I return it to you, go and burn. 

I shall not see you more — so she advises. 

And so I think. I wish you well no less. 

You are a little old to rise to fame, 

Or excellence in acting, yet go on. 

Perhaps there is not aught beside to do, 

And it will occupy your mind, good-bye." 

So shortly everywhere I seemed to sense 
The feeling that they deemed me foul and base. 
While we were friends I made her known to artists, 
And writers in the city. With this start 
She had gone on and multiplied her friends 
Among this folk. I saw it all at once 
As one sees dawn from darkness. Then 
The social standard melted, gave away 
To all that had been written for some years. 
Free love had won at last. And we who kept 
s [257] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Our love In hiding, she who lied to keep 

Her name as one who lived a maiden's life, 

And I who doubted, hated her because 

She was not freshly mine, we, she and I, 

Stepped to a world all new, she to enjoy 

And I to perish. I was weak from loss 

Of blood from wounds she gave me, spent for love 

Poured for her sorrow, for she grieved and wept 

That I was not her early love, her love 

At love's beginning. I went here and there 

To build her life up, make it rich, repair 

The injuries of her youth, retrieve the days 

Which had brought loneliness. Forbear with me — 

I thought I could tell all in just a word — 

Yes, this is it — She learned what was my strength 

And took it for her own, found out my faults 

And struck me there. She gave me confidence 

And trust, I fancied. On analysis 

She had concealed herself, there had not been 

Clear understanding with us. So she took 

My friends, and friends are never wholly friends. 

And made them hers, through these made other friends, 

Explored my havens, my alliances, 

My secret powers of prestige in the world. 

And I awoke to find the world my foe 1 

And every desk of every editor 

Silent for knowledge of me, breaking silence 

In just a word of hate. You see she loosed 

[258] 



MONSIEUR D TO THE PSYCHOANALYST 

This story like a mist which creeps through cracks 

That I had compromised her. Then behold 

I who had helped to bring this era in 

Of sex equality, yes, in spite of all, 

My ingrained feelings I have spoken of, 

Found myself robbed of her by just the creed 

I had upheld, and saw her live with him 

Who was her friend, before I knew her, yes, 

And justified by those whom she had feared, 

Because they hated me, and pitied him 

Bound to a woman in a loveless life 

Who would not free him, let him marry her. 

Then the last atom of my strength I summoned 
To play Othello. It was death or life ! 
Soul triumph or soul ruin. But you see 
The cockatrice had sent the word around 
And sharpened every critic eye. I faced 
An audience of one mind, could sense it all 
Where hatred, mild amusement were well mixed 
To poison, paralyze creative power, 
And even break my memory. But I said 
Show now your genius, drink the hatred in 
Till all your spirit sparkles as a star 
When the north wind of winter blows at night. 
Nothing opposes but a woman's hate. 
Rise on its wreckage. So I spurred myself. 
And even when I saw her critic friend 
[259]. 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

Limned from the mass of faces, lost my clue 
And waited for the prompter, then my rage 
Upheld me — yes, but wait — the rest is brief. 

I had not acted through the strangle scene 

When I heard calls and bells, the curtain fell, 

My understudy led me from the stage. 

Out in the night we went — I knew not where — 

It was a night of drink, and I awoke 

To strange surroundings in a scented room, 

A woman with light hair lay by my side 

"How did I get here" — then the woman laughed 

She was a Fury, for the Furies had me. 

Out of the house I ran, from place to place, 

All day went wandering in the city, thus 

My wanderings of ten years began, they seem 

Ten centuries. What do you think of this ? 

Vm. fifty-seven, with a bad complex, 

Can you unravel it and make me well ? 



260] 



THE LAST CONFESSION 

Dear, if you knew how my poor heart 
Aches for your heart by day and night — 
Forever lost to life's delight, 
As seasons pass and years depart, 
You would not let the invisible flame 
Of hatred sear and scar your soul, 
Where once in living light my name 
Was lettered like an aureole I 

You, who lost faith in me, will not 
Believe this last confession, made 
To lift your spirit from the shade 
Wherein it walks and views the spot 
Of my offense. But when I saw 
That our love's life must have an end, 
I looked back o'er our path with awe 
And traced it toward us to the sign 
Where our ways severed, yours and mine. 
There stood Remorse's dreaded shape ! 
Your Disbelief ! Your Self-Contempt ! 
I saw our love was not exempt 
From ruin and could not escape. 
[261] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

We could not separate and smile, 
And keep a faithful thought the while 
Of understanding (like a spring 
Hidden, refreshing, murmuring) 
As friend sometimes takes leave of friend. 
Then what was left ? It was this thought 
That at the last came forth to slay 
Your love, without a warning brought 
Ere my lips tightened to betray ! 

For as our love found depths too deep ; 
As absence almost deadened sense; 
As often I awoke from sleep 
And looked for hours at you, all tense, 
Lest you awake and see my eyes, 
Where the one thought of purest love 
Shone like a fixed star's paradise, 
I learned to know that Self above — 
Making the heart's hierarchy pure — 
Stands the archangel Truth, preferred — 
Throned over Love which can endure 
Only where Truth has stood, unstirred. 
Watchful and with his torch of stars 
Held o'er Love's face, although it shows 
The forehead's pain, the bosom's scars, 
The cheeks bleached out from secret tears 
In memory of impalpable blows, 
Shed in the night's long solitude. 
[2621 



THE LAST CONFESSION 

You see I could not give you truth ! 
There was the Shadow in my Hfe 
Cast by the fierce Sun of my youth. 
And as our day fell to the west 
The Shadow lengthened and the strife 
'Twixt Love and Truth within my breast 
Waxed fiercer. Heaven's deathless blue 
Leaned on my hungering soul and pained 
Its wings, as if a joy were lost, 
Or never had been quite attained, 
Or captured at too great a cost. 
I could not give you truth all true. 
My love for you and then the thirst 
For all your love, made me accursed 
Of fear that if you knew me first. 
Just as I am, your heart would cease 
To cherish mine. And then much more 
Was this fear venom to my peace 
When all the world spread out before 
Our astonished eyes, as our own world, 
And we its children, each for each. 

This was the sleepless worm which curled 
In my heart's petals, at the root 
Where my heart's sweetness had its source. 
You never saw the worm ! My speech 
Poised like a bee who knows the loot 
Of honey's gone, and turns his course. 

[263] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

I kept the petals closed, and you 

Breathed at their tips, but would have known 

All of their fragrance, or of blight. 

That's love — to have no place where light 

And understanding have not shone. 

Your face reproached me — I who knew 

No sweet or bitter essences 

Can be withheld from Love that keeps 

An onward flight, which ever sees. 

Or would see, all in the heart's deeps. 

Then Life came, and with lifted sword 

Laid on our souls his dread command; 

"Say your farewells, part hand from hand, 

You the adorer, and adored. 

Duty is seeking you ! And Grief 

Would have her child return and see 

The changeless halls of Misery, 

And the bare board and darkened hearth." 

I reeled with anguish as the earth 

Sank from my feet. For oh the end 

Seemed far as death ! And when it came 

It was my hope, my soul's desire 

To part as friend may part from friend, 

And that you'd keep alive my name 

Bright as an altar's quenchless fire. 

It could not be ! How could it be ? 

I was not truth ! I was not true — 

[264] 



THE LAST CONFESSION 

I kept my soul's real self from you. 

Then I bethought me: "Since his earth 

Is Autumn-stricken with a doubt 

That I am worth not his love's worth, 

Were it no better he should know 

Disloyalty made definite 

By a suspected past re-knit, 

And see our love a play played out, 

Than to live through the soft decline 

Of our bright day to solemn eve — 

A sunset of remembrance — where 

He walks devoured by love and hate — 

Love for the love I strove to give. 

Hate for a thought intuitive : 

Some newer love her heart hath won 

Or some first love hath won her back. 

No, to my faith, he says, "I'll cleave. 

Believing that I can't believe." 

"Slow death to love ! Exquisite rack !" 

Ah me ! I had not made this fate — 

The warp was stretched, the woof was spun. 

The roof-tree laid long years before 

You entered at the unbolted door. 

"Then what is best } What can be done ? 

To give him back his pride and strength. 

And even his peace of mind at length .? 

Better a quick blow ! Better blood ! 

To brace the soul and poise the brain 

[26s] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And make him what he was again." 
Just then the Shadow near me stood 
Who stepped aside for you. He took 
With unabated comradeship 
My hand in his. That closed our book. 
I woke to hear the water drip 
Blown out of heavens low and dim. 
He brushed my tears off with his hand — 
Nor clouds nor memory trouble him. 
And my one thought of you was this : 
Fve cured you with this sacrifice — 
The hate has come to you I planned. 
The hate that may take form in words, 
For scorn like this : "I found a seam 
"Right at the contact of our love. 
"No recreative fire can warm 
"And fuse fine gold with lifeless dross, 
"Or worthy metal make thereof." 
This killed your love and wrecked your dream ! 
This is my soul's confession. Wait, 
A trickster in a hooded form 
Stands by as we begin to pull 
The weaving beam, and throws between 
The warp and woof a ball of wool. 
It catches and is woven in 
The colors, spoils the conscious blend. 
Changes the pattern to the end. 
Whatever it be I call it fate. 
[266] 



THE LAST CONFESSION 

In misery or in happiness 

We must live on awhile no less. 

Shall we be master weavers, climb, 

Or leave the loom, or waste the time ? 

Or guide the shuttle till the threads 

Weave clear or turn to worthless shreds ? 



267] 



IN THE LOGGIA 

There were seven nights of the moon 

This August, beloved. 

There were nights before the seven 

When we scarcely saw the moon, 

Or perhaps as we canoed, ere the sun sank, 

We saw her as a transparent tissue of white 

Against a sky as white. 

But when we first saw the moon 

She had risen before the sun had sunk. 

Then the next night she was brighter 

With the evening planet above her. 

Despite the tongues of fire in the west 

Where the sun had set on fire 

Great coils of cloud ! 

And then there were those nights between 

Her growth and her o'erflowing fullness 

When hand in hand we walked in your garden 

Amid the Chinese balloons and coreopsis, 

Hibiscus, marigold, hydrangeas. 

Under the rose arches, 

And by the hedge of California privet. 

And looked at the lake, 

[268] 



IN THE LOGGIA 

And the moon in the sky 
And the moon on the lake. 

And do you remember what we saw 

As we stared at the wake of the moon 

On the lake ? 

The ripples made blacknesses, 

And the moon made silver splendors, 

And as we stared we saw 

In the shadows of waves 

Running into the light of the moon on the water 

Youths and maids and children 

Coming from darkness into the light in a dance, 

Joining hands, falling into embraces. 

Hurrying to evanishment at the path of light 

Where the moon had paved the water. 

I shall never see the moon on the water 

Without seeing these youths and maids and children, 

And without thinking of that night 

Of the full moon 1 

This was the night 

We saw the moon rise, from the very first. 

Across the lake o'ertopping the forest. 

A spire of pine stood up 

Against a sky made pale as of the northern lights. 

But in a moment a bit of fire lit the spire of the pine 

As it were a candle lighted. 

[269] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

And she rose so fast that I took my watch 

To time the rising of the moon 

Free and clear of the spire. 

And she rose so fast that as we gazed 

She cleared the spire, 

And soared with such silent glory above the forest, 

And sailed to the southwest of the spire. 

And at that moment the whippoorwills 

Began to sing in the woodlands near — 

We had not heard them before in all this summer. 

And we stood in the loggia 

In the silence of our own thoughts, 

In the silence of the full moon ! 

And it was then that the pressure of your hand 

Gave me a meaning of sorrow. 

It was then that the pressure of your hand 

Spoke, as flame which turns in the wind. 

Of a change in your heart. 

But if not a change, of another's heart 

Toward whom you turned. 

And I sit in the loggia to-night 

Waiting for the moon to rise, 

She will not rise till midnight. 

And then she will rise, a poor half wreck of herself. 

No whippoorwill has sung to-night. 

And none will sing. 

[270] 



IN THE LOGGIA 

And if there are youths and maids and children 

Hurrying into the dance on the water, 

Embracing and fading in light, 

I shall not see. 

No, in this darkness where I breathe 

The scent of the sweet alyssum 

Which you planted and tended 

I shall wait for midnight, 

And the rise of our ruined moon. 

In the darkness of the loggia 

Under a sky that hopes for no moon to-night, 

Save the wasted moon of midnight, 

I am filled with a deep happiness 

And a thankfulness to the Power 

Behind the sky : 

I am filled with a joy as wide and deep as nature 

That my love for you 

Can live without your love for me. 

And asks nothing of you, 

And nothing for you 

Save that you find what you seek ! 



[271 



BE WITH ME THROUGH THE SPRING 

The snow has passed, the crocus blooms, 

A swelling tide of life returns ; 

Green lights invade the forest glooms, 

All nature wakes and yearns. 

The breeze lifts and the ships take wing 

To havens which we long have known ; 

And yet — and yet I dread the spring, 

For fear you may be gone. 

Life gives us sweet delights and then 
Gathers them back and buries them deep. 
Oh, wanton hearts, that kill them when 
They do not tire or sleep. 
The breeze lifts and the ships take wing — 
Be with me through the spring. 



[272] 



DESOLATE SCYTHIA 

X^OVOS fJiCV €S TTjXovpbv ^KOfACV TTeSoV. AES. 

When there are no distances In music, 

No far off things suggested of faery forests or celestial 

heights ; 
When nothing undiscovered stands back of the written 

page, 
And the landscape contains nothing hidden, 
And no alluring spirits of further places ; 
When no more in eyes shines the light of mystery, 
And the thrill of discovered kinships 
Has fallen into the familiar recognition 
That takes all men and women 
As daily associates of an accustomed world, 
Then you have come to the uttermost plain of earth 
Where lie the rocks of desolate Scythia. 



[273] 



THE SEARCH 

When the hill grows green at midway time, 
And bronze buds toss in the lane 
It is sweet to follow the river swallow 
Where the tiles are red from rain. 

When the slanting wind shakes apple blossoms, 
And the willow trees are bowed 
The balcony banners flutter up 
Where sails the hilltop cloud. 

The balcony banners are ever the same 
Wherever the heart may stray ; 
One sports the tiger and one the dragon 
Whether you weep or play. 

Where Little Boy Blue and the Knave of Hearts 
And the Goose Girl dance on the green ; 
Where Knights in red and gold ride forth 
Guarding the King and Queen ; 

Where the glint of swords is the only light 
On a passing storm of men ; 
Or where the Furies rocking wait 
For the world to die again ; 
[274I 



THE SEARCH 

Where horsemen ride by the winding river 
Galloping in the quest : 
One wears black and one wears yellow, 
And one in red is dressed. 

One fares in the flaunt of a scholar's cloak, 
And a velvet hat and plume ; 
Two ride with eyes fixed on the ground. 
And one with a face of gloom. 

One laughs at the others and laughs at himself, 
Two think of themselves alone ; 
One sees a goal for his thirsting soul, 
And life as a stepping stone. 

They pass through a village where 
Some boys are flying kites. 
The people come with food and wine 
To entertain the Knights. 

And one takes bread and one takes cake, 
Three drink a little wine. 
And two drink for their heart's delight. 
And one for an anodyne. 

And the Knight in red sHps off to a tavern 
And drinks him deep and strong, 
And then he hurries to catch his fellows 
And hails them with a song. 
[275I 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

They come to a village that lay 
Within a King's domains : 
The Knight in yellow takes his sword 
And strikes away the chains. 

They come to a place of festival 
Through which there passed a hearse : 
The Knight in black reins in his steed 
To look thereon and curse. 

They come to a hall of curious books 
Under a mountain peak : 
The Knight in the scholar's cloak goes in 
And talks with them in Greek. 

And all the way by the winding river 
By heaven's breeze unfurled 
The tiger banner and dragon banner 
Flutter around the world. 

As night drew down they come to a palace 
Of laughter, lights and din. 
Says the Knight in red, "I tarry here, 
For I hear the violin." 

"Nay," says the Knight in yellow dressed ; 
"Nay," says the Knight in black; 
"Nay," says the scholar, "I sleep in the open 
To study the Zodiac." 

[276] 



THE SEARCH 

Out comes to them an equerry 
And sees their piteous dole : 
"Come in," says the ruddy equerry, 
"And dine with Old King Cole." 

He seized their horses ere they could turn 
And led them where candles shone. 
And there with a crown tipped on his head 
Sat the monarch on his throne. 

"What is your name, all yellow dight, 
And where does your sovereign reign ?" 
The sorrowful Knight then answered the King 
"I'm traveling back to Spain." 

"What is your name, all dressed in black, 
And whither do you roam .^" 
"I was a mad prince they sent to England 
And now I'm going home." 

"What is your name, in a scholar's cloak. 
And what is your heart's joy ?" 
"I search through Europe night and day 
For a spouse for Helen of Troy." 

"They're as mad as hatters," said King Cole 
As he straightened his crown on his head. 
"Go call in the fiddlers, bring my bowl, 
Fetch me my pipe," he said. 
[277I 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

"But hold," said Cole, "who are you, fellow, 
"Now answer me fair and well ?" 
"I was born in France," said the Knight in red, 
"And my name's Pantagruel." 

"That's a good name," laughed old King Cole. 

"But whither are you bound ?" 

"I search for the Holy Bottle, King, 

"And I pray it may be found." 

"That's a true answer," said Old King Cole, 
"And here you shall abide; 
"Come up to my throne and reign forever, 
"And sit you by my side." 

"Away with the rest," said Old King Cole, 
"And fetch my bowl," said he. 
"Here is Pantagruel found at last, 
"To keep me company." 

From under the throne he drew the bottle 
And poured wine into the bowl ; 
Pantagruel stepped to the dais 
And drank with Old King Cole. 

"Give yellow and black and scholar's cloak 
A bed In the royal room." 
But Old King Cole and Pantagruel 
Drank till the morning's bloom. 

[278] 



THE SEARCH 

They laughed and drank till the dawn was red, 
While the sleepers prayed and wept. 
They sang to the violins till day, 
While black and yellow slept. 

But Old King Cole, the merry old soul, 
Was a curious soul as well : 
"Who are these fellows," queried he 
Of his friend Pantagruel. 

"Well, never ask me," said Pantagruel, 

"I met them down by the river; 

"But whether they came from the Land of Lanterns 

"They're traveling on forever." 

They went to the room with a candle light 
And looked in the face of the three — 
"They're a sorry lot," said Old King Cole; 
"They're a sorry lot," said he. 

They held the candle to gray beard's face, 
And gray beard moaned in his rest. 
And pricked in color of India ink 
Was a windmill on his breast. 

The other muttered "Life is a shadow," 
And his face was young and pale : 
And pricked on his arm was a green serpent 
Devouring its own tail. 

[279] 



THE GREAT VALLEY 

The other sighed : "I still must struggle 
And strive until I die." 
And over his heart was pricked the shape 
Of a winged butterfly. 

"What do I see," said Old King Cole, 

"Has the wine gone Into my brain ? 

"Who's Helen of Troy ? Who'd leave England ? 

"And who'd return to Spain?" 

Pantagruel and Old King Cole 

Slip down the stairs in stealth. 

They fill the bowl from the Holy Bottle 

And drink each other's health. 

They stand at the window to watch the sun 
And the mists of morning clear : 
Three knights on horses climb the hill, 
And silently disappear. 

And yellow and black and scholar's cloak 
Into the light have gone ; 
And the tiger banner and dragon banner 
Flutter against the dawn. 

There's the dragon banner," says Old King Cole, 
"And the tiger banner," he sighs. 
Pantagruel breaks into a laugh. 
As the monarch dries his eyes. 
[280I 



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